Slingshots And Slipknots
by Sherbert20111
Summary: When an arms dealer wanted by the CIA turns up at Director Shepard's home, the rule book goes out of the window. She has her reasons for wanting him dead and Gibbs with a bad attack of morals. What's a girl to do? Follows on from s5e1 Bury Your Dead. Jibbs.
1. Chapter 1

_'__If the gun had been loaded, if I hadn't turned up, would you have pulled the trigger?'_

Gibbs shut Shepard's front door behind him and flicked open his cell in one economical movement. He took in everything and nothing in front of him, knowing without looking that there would be no sight of Rene Benoit, an arms dealer financed by the FBI. Ziva picked up the call after one ring of the speed dial. Inserted into his team by Jennifer Shepard herself, ostensibly as a Mossad liaison officer, Gibbs had come to trust the Israeli woman with his life.

"Gibbs?"

"Get a warrant for Rene Benoit," he bit out.

"I thought.."

"Don't think, do it," he urged angrily.

"The Director…" Ziva pressed.

"I'll take care of the Director, just tell me when you have it," Gibbs barked and snapped the cell shut, ending the call. The cell was stuffed unceremoniously back into the pocket of his long coat. He let his attention drift back to the street, landing on Shepard's car parked snugly against the kerb.

"You ought to be more careful, Director," he mocked softly.

He stalked down the front steps of Shepard's home and sidled coolly to the front fender, casually glancing up and down the street. He bent to cup the side of his hand against the front passenger window and peeked into the interior, feeling the familiar press of the knife that he carried clipped to his belt against his back. Virtually nothing was visible through the tinted window, not that he expected any less. He straightened, turning his back to the car and nonchalantly withdrew the knife. The blade flicked out just as it came free of his coat. He glanced at the serrated edge for a moment and smiled grimly.

"You weren't going out tonight now, were you Director?" He muttered to himself.

With one smooth movement he crouched and stabbed the blade into the sidewall of the nearest tyre. The air released in a muted hiss and Gibbs watched as the weight of the car caused the corner of the vehicle to begin to sink. Swiftly he retracted the knife, rising and stowing it back where it belonged. He moved back to the passenger door and leaned back against the frame, feeling the gradual movement as the car settled over the now very flat, flat tyre. Cautiously, he swept the street for witnesses. There were none, and if Shepard happened to have a change of heart and chase after Benoit on her own, all she had to do was look out of her window, and she would find him standing by her car. It should be enough to put her off. He tipped his head back against the cool metal, curving his lips into a snide smile.

"That should slow you down," he growled cheerily.

He didn't know exactly what it was about Benoit and Shepard that felt 'off,' but something most definitely was and he was determined to find out.

He changed his stance, raised his head and glared at Shepard's front door. Briefly, he scanned the windows. The lights, on and off, were the same as when he had left, but if he knew anything, he knew Shepard. He blamed his gut when his instincts told him that something was up, in the face of absolutely no evidence. There was no way she would simply let this drop. He knew she has been following Benoit for the best part of her career to date. He admired her tenacity, he loathed her pig-headedness. He hated that she still jerked him around like some puppet on a string, only this time she had a desk with a name on it that meant she was entitled to. Or felt she was entitled to. It was her fault, in so many ways, that he was back doing the job he loved. He smiled wryly to himself, well, he could jerk her around too.

He reached for his cell for the second time, jabbing at a different button when it came open.

"McGee, I need you to do something for me," he said in his most pleasant tone.

"Sure Boss, what's up?" The young agent's voice was nervously attentive.

"I want you to track the Director's cell," he turned at the sound of a car, but the vehicle glided past without slowing, or the driver so much as turning their head. Dusk was falling, but Gibbs made a point of memorising the number plate in the encroaching gloom anyway.

There was a stunned silence.

"Err, Boss. I really like my job and.." McGee's doubtful tone stumbled over the words.

"I'm glad to hear it," Gibbs said reasonably.

"Right. Well. Err." There was the clatter of keys over the line before McGee's voice came on again. "It's showing at her home address right now, Boss. She took a call about fifteen minutes ago.."

The call Benoit would have made, Gibbs confirmed to himself. Probably got the number from DiNozzo.

"If it moves, I want you to call me." Gibbs didn't wait for a reply, he closed the call and the handset, returning it to his coat pocket. He narrowed his eyes at the silent property in front of him.

"What are you up to?" He said out loud. She was smart. Too smart for her own good. If she was going out, there was no saying she would take her cell with her. It had been his job to train her as a probationary agent. He knew exactly how headstrong she could be if something got under her skin. Their relationship, or lack of it was a case in point, if ever there was one. He had underestimated her in Marseilles and again in Paris, he wasn't about to do the same thing now. He wracked his brain to try and put himself in her place, smacking the side of the car in frustration when he realised he didn't have enough information to go on, to do it well.

He sighed heavily, raking over the memories of their time in France. It had started in Marseilles. Innocently enough, he had thought at the time. It had been hot as Hell in an attic room overlooking a Lebanese trawler. They had been stuck in there together for 56 hours straight. She'd held herself cool and collected all the way through it, right to the very end where she slipped up and nearly aced herself getting down the ladder. It was only then he realised she hadn't slept while he had the binoculars trained on their quarry. She had been watching his back, in spite of the number of times he had told her to do otherwise.

They had argued. Strike that. He had made a comment and she had torn it apart over the silence he left in his side of the conversation. He had said his piece. It wasn't personal. From the warehouse to the street, from the street to the car. She wouldn't leave it alone. When they stopped at a small restaurant, he could see clearly she was still simmering. She had excused herself to the restroom rather than look at him across the table while they waited for food.

After thirty seconds of swearing in his head, he had followed her. It was the best and worst thing he could have done. It was the first time she had kissed him. She challenged him at every turn and then she made him forget how angry he was. She made him forget. Period. He swore it wouldn't go any further. He thought he was in control. She showed him exactly how wrong he was in Paris and every time he pulled back, in every European city after that, until he stopped trying. He blinked his eyes tight shut and open again, snarling at himself getting distracted.

"She's not in there, not any more." He hurled himself at the front steps of the house, crashing against the front door. He rang the bell futilely, knowing she wouldn't answer, looking right and left to the corners of the property, to an alleyway that ran alongside the house.

He leapt down the steps and ducked into the alley, making his way to a gate in the fence of her back yard. It opened easily, without so much as a squeak. He smiled grimly, fingering a piece of foliage nearby that had broken away from its stem. The sap was still wet, leaving a glistening smear in his fingertips in the half light. He glanced up at the back of the house and the dimness of the lights in the windows.

"You don't mind if I wait inside, do you?" He asked the empty garden, certain now that he had missed her, less certain by exactly how much. He didn't fear for her safety. There was nothing in Benoit's profile that suggested he killed personally. Plus, there was that strangeness in the way the conversation had gone. Benoit had pleaded, not as a person with so much to lose, but as a person trying to kindle, or rekindle a personal connection with the other party. It made Gibbs strangely uncomfortable to be a witness to it. It was reminiscent of how he had felt when Shepard had admitted she wasn't leaving with him at the end of their European tour.

Confidently he made his way to the back door and tried the handle. It was locked. He glanced around once, before reaching for a small wallet of lock pick tools in his inside jacket pocket and setting to work.

A/N: I don't normally hit the same ball twice - does it still count if I write his character instead of hers? He's starting to keep me up nights.


	2. Chapter 2

Before…

Shepard sat in her Study toying with a snifter of bourbon. Positioned behind her Father's desk, she had nothing but an unloaded gun and a full magazine clip for company. Her lip curled at the recent past and she took an aggrieved sip.

After an exacting day at the office, she had come home to find the sanctity of her Georgetown home invaded by a man she had been tracking for a dozen years or more. It was ironic in a way to find the man they called La Grenouille on her doorstep, after all, he was a close second to the real reason she had stayed in Europe at the end of her official tour. She wondered if her then partner, Gibbs, would ever forgive her for making him leave without her. She had to forgive herself for it first, she reminded herself.

Never in her wildest nightmares had she imagined this reality. 'The Frog' as it translated, had left her house a free man. Hunted, granted, but free nonetheless. Free to face his enemies with his wits and without her help. Rene Benoit barely needed it she reasoned. He had enough money and contacts to disappear within the hour if that was what he wanted. She snorted to herself, he would do it too unless everything he was, in becoming one of the foremost arms dealers, was all a set up by the CIA. She could imagine the stink that would cause on the Hill, if it came out that the CIA was running guns. She shook her head ruefully, it would never come out, not officially at least. That wasn't how the Game was played.

She leant back in her chair, allowing her focus to drift over the items on the desk blotter. Gibbs had left almost immediately after Rene. It would have made her feel better if Gibbs had slammed the door after he stormed out, with his long coat flapping in his wake. It would have provided a kind of punctuation to the typically one sided conversation she had had with Gibbs that went something along the lines of him stating, with nothing more than the look on his face_, 'I just stopped you from doing something stupid. You can thank me later.'_ As it was, the culmination of the conversation was him slapping a full magazine clip on to the desk in front of her from his own SIG Sauer, to replace the empty one in her own gun.

In her role as Director, they butted heads more times than she cared to recall, mostly based around how he thought she should be doing the job, despite the fact that he never wanted the position himself. Gibbs didn't just call her out on her decisions, he took the way she dealt with situations as a personal affront if she didn't make the same choices he would have. He was infuriating, not least because he was frequently right, albeit in the wrong way.

She considered where her old partner might have gone after leaving her house, clearly disgusted at her behaviour. She told herself she didn't care on either count. He was officially off the clock and she was above his distain. There was no way he would let La Grenouille roam his patch without trying to cover off every bolthole that bastard had. She could have saved him the trouble if she had been able to drop him where he stood. She had a niggling sensation that if her own and Gibbs' position had been reversed, he would have had no problem taking the Frog out. The stiletto stab of his accusation still winded her though, not least because it felt like Gibbs doubted her judgement. Rage surged in her again, not about her interaction with the Frog, with Gibbs. If she was the snake, he was the stick and vice versa.

Gibbs' question still hung in the air. She had replied that now, they would never find out. It was audacious of him to even ask the question she thought. It wouldn't have been the first time that she had taken down an unarmed mark, or at least had been expected to. She told herself he had no idea what she was really capable of. She was single minded in the pursuit of her end-game she admitted to herself. He had another word for it, '_obsessive'_ she thought. No, something infinitely more dangerous, '_reckless.' _She felt like the Queen piece on a chess board, her sweeping moves to rule the board stifled by her own stumbling pawns, stalled in all the wrong places.

Gibbs had probably gone for the warrant he had urged her to obtain so that they could take the Frog into custody – the word 'protective' was optional as far as she was concerned. She wanted him dead. He was the last link in the well publicised mystery surrounding her Father's death. She turned her mind away from the subject with a grimace.

Without looking, her hands reached for the unloaded weapon and shed the empty magazine. What she hadn't said to Gibbs was that she knew it was unloaded the instant that she'd pulled it from the drawer. She didn't consider it a unique skill. She might have been out of the field for a time, but her firing practice was up to date and her muscle memory knew exactly what an unloaded weapon felt like, compared to a loaded one.

The bullets had a weight that anyone experienced in firearms would have noticed missing. Gibbs would have known that too, even if she hadn't figured out that the first thing Rene would have done was frisk the place for weaponry and render himself safe in its presence. For a man who dealt with the instruments of death every day, Benoit had a surprising ability to distance himself from his most deadly cargo.

But it was important, not least for the look of the thing, that she had raised her arm with the useless weapon, unable to resist the opportunity to sight down the barrel of a gun at that smug sonofabitch, Benoit. In a way she was disappointed that the Frenchman hadn't appeared more affected by the gesture, perhaps because in his line of work, an irate woman pointing a gun at him was an everyday occurrence.

Gibbs probably thought he had stopped her from making a career changing decision. She had recognised Gibbs comment for the cattle prod that it was. He had accused her of a lack of professional judgement in letting Rene leave as he had come – under his own auspices, whatever they might be. She allowed in this moment, that he might be right. She wondered idly if he had managed to materialise in the nick of time because he had been following Rene, or just as likely, her. He was good at his job, she thought, she wouldn't have had a hope of knowing if he was tailing her, if he didn't want her to know.

The ghost of a smug smile graced her lips. As opposed to the times that he tailed her home, so obviously that it was impossible to miss. Neither of them ever mentioned it, but in the office the morning after, he would have that amused, inviting look in his eye that she recognised, wordlessly querying, _'did you miss me yet?' _She would raise her chin and turn her head as if she had seen nothing out of the ordinary, before giving him one last glance over her shoulder while she ascended the gantry, to find him following her movement out of the corner of his eye. She would reply in her own silent way, _'maybe I will enough, by next time.'_

Her mouth echoed the half lift his would take on, a mirror of the private smile they would share that set tongues wagging. She was gambling on the fact that there would always be a next time. She bided her time, knowing at some stage they would push each other's buttons far enough that he would ask the question, in person. It wouldn't be verbal, he would simply turn up unannounced.

He would stand in front of her, wherever their paths met, probably move with her to stand in front of her again if she tried to side step around him. _Around them_. He would let her tow him somewhere private, after a pause just long enough to make sure she knew he was doing her a favour by tagging along. Her answer wouldn't be the same now that Colonel Mann was out of the frame, she knew it in her bones. She had a suspicion he did too, but it hadn't happened yet. Tomorrow, she thought to herself. He wouldn't be able to resist, tomorrow. If there was ever anyone dying of curiosity about why people did what they did, it was Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He was ten times worse when he thought he already knew the answer.

The empty magazine dropped on to the leather inlaid desk with a soft thump. She reached for the full clip Gibbs had left, sliding it into place and pulling back the firing mechanism with a practiced movement. A subtle click, clunk told her the action was complete. Inside the chamber, the loading action readied the first bullet in the magazine for firing and left a microscopic graze in its side. She laid the weapon flat on the desk, with the muzzle pointing towards the door. It was unlikely either man would return tonight. She allowed herself a small smile, reaching to salute the empty room with her glass and said quietly to herself, "good hunting." She didn't mean Gibbs. She meant it for herself.

La Grenouille was out there somewhere. She had a hunch she knew where he might be from something his daughter, Jeanne, had mentioned earlier in the day. Her Father, the Frog, had a boat. She had the name of the Marina stored carefully in the back of her mind. She had been there before, her Father had kept a small skiff there in his time. It would be cold on the water his time of night, she thought.

Benoit had called her, moments before she had entered her house. Provided he hadn't ditched his cell, she could contact him. She was banking on the supposition he would take a call from an unknown number, pretty sure he would do it if he was desperate enough. She could explain her earlier actions at the house as something borne out of the unwelcome surprise of finding her in her home. She would explain that she preferred to keep work 'at work.'

She had the additional ammunition of Gibbs having been an unwelcome witness, it was more true than he could possibly know. She could say that a secret, say an arms dealer being offered sanctuary, was something kept between as few people as possible. He would buy it, she was sure of it. She pictured Gibbs face as if she were describing her thought process to him, adapting his rules for her purposes would make him furious.

She took another sip of bourbon, swilling the acrid liquid around her mouth while she ruthlessly raked through her options. If she did nothing, it was likely Rene would succumb to his enemies' resources and they would finish a job twelve years in the making. She would make sure she had her mawkish moment of celebration when he turned up for ritual dismemberment on the Medical Examiner's slab. It would get the job done, she considered, but didn't feel much like retribution, she craved something more personal. It was possible he would disappear and she would never know if he was dead or alive. It certainly wasn't beyond possibility that his enemies could make a corpse disappear, particularly since once of them was the CIA.

There was an outside chance that he would escape, in which case she would receive a dozen red roses and an insanely expensive bottle of brandy from him as a nose thumbing gesture. It had happened before, when he was at the top of his game. She sincerely doubted this time there would be a gift and flowers at the office in the morning, he had looked genuinely afraid. She had refused to offer him asylum, and any lead he could have had must have been halved in the time he lost canvassing her for it. She quashed any sympathy she might have felt, reserving it instead for his daughter, Jeanne. Jeanne had stumbled into this topsy turvy world not of her own making and been badly burned in the process. Her scars were Shepard's doing, she admitted to herself with a pang of remorse. She knew how parental betrayal felt first hand.

Shepard's Father had allegedly been involved in illegal bribes related to arms dealing. She glanced at the picture she kept of the Colonel on the desk. Her Father was pictured in full military regalia, same as the day that he had died. La Grenouille was supposed to have been the arms dealer. There was a Russian connection she had chased to ground and had a name, that individual was now also dead.

Jasper Shepard was long since deceased, in an apparent suicide, but Shepard knew better. A closer inspection of the circumstances had led the report on his death to indicate CIA stamped all over it, not that it said it in as many words. She gave a small snort of derision. She had been a junior agent when it had happened. It had made her reconsider her own career path a dozen times or more. Every file for every job she went for would carry parental details, including life, and death. Even with her lack of experience, she had known what he was accused of could potentially change everything. In following the connections to La Grenouille, she confirmed everyone's assumption that her behaviour was nothing more complicated than a vendetta. In reality, La Grenouille could be used to prove that her Father's death was no suicide. It was murder.

She glanced at her wrist watch and leant back in the chair. Another five minutes and she would check the street outside, from the unlit shadows of an upstairs room. In ten, she would have changed into something dark and nondescript, taking just a moment to make a 'phone call. In fifteen, she would have exited the safety of her Georgetown home and be on her way, unidentifiable in form hugging leathers and a motorcycle helmet, with the night and its work ahead of her. She kept a small motorcycle down a side street at the back of the house for emergencies. In her own mind at least, the current situation more than qualified.

A/N: These characters and the background story does not belong to me, CBS owns it. I'm just filling in the gaps.


	3. Chapter 3

The motorcycle slowed to a halt outside the boundaries of a public park. Under a pool of light, a solitary man wrapped up in a long coat sat in the middle of a bench seat with his back to her. His bald head shone strangely in the artificial light. Shepard put a foot down to guide the bike to a halt, kicked the stand down and twisted the key to silence the engine. She lifted the helmet and left it hanging from one of the handlebars, swinging her leg over the back of the seat to dismount. Pulling black leather gloves from her fingers, she approached the seat.

Without preamble, she said, "let's walk."

Trent Kort rose swiftly to his feet at the sound of her voice and matched her pace. The CIA handler looked straight ahead, his voice nothing more than a low rumble.

"I'm listening."

"You said this would not end well for me, I can only imagine how it will end for you if Benoit went public." Shepard growled.

"You turned him down?"

"You knew he was coming to me," Shepard spat. She had put two and two together. The Frog had been targeted, he had to have explored the possibility that the CIA could have been the perpetrators. She had put NCIS firmly on the Frog's radar by having Tony DiNozzo from Gibbs' team get close as a Honey trap to the Frog's one weakness, his daughter. Tony's cover had been blown. He had been discovered. Kort was well aware of both this and Benoit's name interlinked with her Father's death since the latter was most certainly common knowledge within the agency fraternity. "And what I would say," she finished tartly.

"Where is he?" She asked flatly.

"I'm sure you have some idea," he replied smoothly.

Shepard bit back a laugh. Kort didn't know, or at least, was unsure.

"I've been waiting a long time," she gritted out. She was certain she would have been able to get close to La Grenouille before this, if it weren't for the CIA.

"Tell me," encouraged Kort. "About the night of your Father's death. Benoit was there?"

"I understood they got into an argument. I know now that I couldn't have saved him, but I will see that bastard dead for what he did." The vehemence in her voice bled into every word. With the CIA involved, every word of what she said felt true. The fist of hatred squeezed around her heart. The story she gave sounded more real each time she retold it. She had been home. She shied away from the memory of the gunshot, recalling instead Benoit leaving the house. "You'll know what I need, when I need it."

Kort's pace slowed and Jenny mirrored it, seething with impatience. "Having the CIA owe you a favour can be a good thing," he offered after a slight pause. She felt her lips twist, he was going to let her have what she wanted. He would give her the latitude to hunt down Benoit without interference.

"I'm going to have to collect on that," she warned. Apparently home alone all evening, she would have no alibi and only the well known storyline of her abhorrence for The Frog to fall back on. It was hardly enough to exonerate her when questions started being asked. No-one would expect her to follow through her disgust of Benoit with actually killing him. It wouldn't make sense, given their adversarial relationship was so public. The only person who might give it house room was Gibbs. As far as she was concerned, he was the only one would need to be convinced.

"Pleasure doing business with you," said Kort, looking at the sliver of moon emerging from behind clouds and sticking out his hand. It made the side of his face closest to the light take on a silver sheen, like some sort of mechanical mask.

Shepard stared at it and then shook his hand once with distaste. It had however, given her an idea. She held on to his hand a moment too long for it to be cordial. Glittering eyes scanned her face. He took a small step closer. "If you ever found yourself looking for a younger partner," Kort offered in response. It took a split second for what he said to register. He wasn't taking about a partner in the field.

She hadn't had a partner in the field since she took on the Director's chair. Gibbs had made it abundantly clear where he thought her place was on her return to American soil, and that was with him, as an active agent. Off duty, well, Gibbs had made that pretty clear too, he'd like nothing better than for her to be within touching distance, the closer the better.

She remembered what it was like, to be around him all the time. Her body had become so attuned to him, she could tell when he walked into a room, even if the room was full of other people and the door was a hundred yards away. Pinpricks of sensation smarted at the base of her spine. She wanted to turn her head and check. She didn't, fighting the ghost of a memory that begged to have the dust blown off. She liked the dust, needed it as a protective coating for her feelings, still red raw after all these years.

"I haven't had a _partner_ for some time," she said deliberately misdirecting, "but, I'll bear that in mind," she closed grimly, schooling her face into a tense smile.

Kort would be an efficient fuck she decided. Get in, get the job done, get out. No time for the niceties. There could be a place for that, if all else failed, if it weren't for the fact that he reminded her of a reptile. She could just imagine him with flat, cold scales and a flicking tongue to taste the air with. For tonight at least, and in the days to come, she needed his goodwill, and she was prepared to do whatever was necessary within reason to secure it. She was beyond seeing her body as anything but yet another tool in her armoury to reach her goal. It was the leap that Gibbs would never have expected of her, it might even hurt him, she considered.

Kort slipped his hand from hers, turned on his heel without another word and disappeared swiftly into the gloom. Shepard waited thirty seconds and retraced her steps, wiping her palm unconsciously on her leathers. Kort was a cold fish and didn't bother to hide it.

Her mind wandered to a Mossad operative she had worked with in Europe a handful of years ago, and one night in particular, when they had shared some tricks of the trade. The agent, Ziva David had been cold too, ruthlessly efficient, incredibly driven and covered all of it in a layer of femininity people found impossible to penetrate. Some of the tricks were new, some she knew, and had already used in anger.

It was the same night she had met Ari, dropping by his half-sister's apartment with no notice, his soft eyes and hard soul. Ziva had commented, half joking after he left, that with Gibbs gone, she would have tried a honey trap for Shepard too.

Shepard had taken the statement to heart, casting a jaundiced eye over every advance that came after it. It was hard not to see Gibbs' behaviour in the same light to some degree, although the thought of that being true hurt more than she could say, it was one of the reasons she kept him at arm's length. The trouble was, it had become such second nature, she wasn't sure she could turn it off. Too long ago, she had learnt to separate herself from the memory of an unmade bed in a garret room, where the breeze made the curtains stream in from windows that opened outwards and pebbled the warm skin shifting under her fingertips.

She found herself at the edge of the park and approached the motorcycle with caution, scanning both the bike and its surroundings for anything out of the ordinary. The CIA might be a sister agency, but Trent Kort was more than a mere operative. With the scale of the gun running that The Frog had been involved in, she had a suspicion he was operating well outside of the limits of his brief. She made a mental note to contact Agent Fornell if she survived tonight, to have someone keep an eye on him. Power was to some people nothing more than good coffee was to Gibbs. To others, it was an illegal high they craved more and more of until their world exploded. She had Kort pegged firmly as the latter.

The thought of Gibbs and his attention to detail stayed with her while she checked the motorcycle thoroughly with her bare hands, wincing at the heat still in the exhaust metal. It was clean. She sat astride and hauled on her gloves again, starting the bike before swiftly fixing her helmet. What would he think of her out at night, alone, doing what she was about to do. He would applaud. He would be appalled. He would pick up the pieces. She shrugged off the pre-emptive guilt, tilting the heavy machine under her to one side and kicked at the bike stand to make it fold. The engine revved once, purring and responsive to her mood, as the bike and its rider tore away from the kerb.

She took the scenic route to the Marina, stopping once to dismantle and ditch the burn 'phone she had used to call Kort for the meeting. She picked these handsets up at random when she was out in the field and held a small stock of them at home. They were an invaluable aid to an active agent, allowing them to make virtually untraceable calls. She smiled wryly to herself, in spite of her frequent reminders to Gibbs that she was no longer a field agent, the things that he had taught her were so firmly ingrained, that she barely recognised the actions as anything out of the ordinary.

To an extent, everything was traceable these days. The serial number of the cell phone or the battery or any of the hundreds of components could be traced back to a store. She made sure she never patronised the same store more than once, picking small establishments that might have CCTV, but were unlikely to have a sufficiently advanced sale/stock take to trace a specific handset to a day, let alone a purchaser. Cash was still common place enough to make her transaction nothing out of the ordinary.

The air became crisper and colder as she drew nearer to the bay. What little traffic there was at this time of night thinned to a rare vehicle passing from the opposite direction.

When the lights from the harbour started to spike the horizon with colour, she pulled over into a layby and killed the engine. Carefully, she removed her helmet and took a few deep breaths in the silence. Stiffening her resolve, she pulled a new cell phone from an inside pocket of her jacket and dialled, using a number that had been used to call her earlier in the evening. She was far enough away that the sound of halyards tinkling against the mastheads was absent. For the person on the other end of the line, she could be anywhere. The cell rang, clicked once as the call went live and was silent.

"You know who this is," she announced into the void. The silence stretched out to a point where she rechecked the screen to confirm that a connection had gone through. An accented voice she knew so well spoke softly.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you."

There was the sound of creaking over a faint rumble that could have been the sound of an engine from inside a wheelhouse and a click that could have been a door closing.

"We need to talk," she said between gritted teeth. The more likely he was underway, the less likely he would come back for her and would soon be out of her reach.

"I have already left." He confirmed.

"I'm close to the Marina," she urged, willing him to listen. "A meeting would be mutually beneficial," she offered.

"In what way?" He sounded like he was listening, she reasoned, perhaps looking for ways to take her up on her offer. If she was wrong, all she was doing was leaving it longer before she got hold of the coastguard to put them on alert. Without a warrant though, she had nothing to hold him for, and there was precious little she could do to exact her revenge while he was in custody. He _had_ to remain beyond the law, but within her reach. The coastguard would delay him, make it easier for his enemies to reach out and do her dirty work for her. Silently she ground her teeth. It wasn't enough. He was so close, _she_ was so close, she could taste his defeat. Besides, she couldn't afford to have him loose, not with what he knew about her Father's death.

"I've had some time to reconsider," she suggested. "Coming to my home," she drew in a breath, "you put me in an impossible position."

"Gibbs?"

She didn't answer. She didn't know how to. Gibbs in the scenario that played out in her Study held an unassailable role. He represented everything that was good about the rule of Law, and everything that was wrong with it. Gibbs was right in that within her role of Director, she should have offered Benoit protection, but he had also allowed a seasoned criminal to walk out of her property without so much as a scratch on him.

She worried for a moment that Rene would ask for Gibbs in her stead. Their history was different, less personal. The Frenchman halted her train of thought. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't have a choice," she replied evenly. He was tempted, she was sure of it. The protective arm of NCIS versus the World. Gibbs represented that arm, not her, but she could use the shadow of it to get what she wanted.

"Alone?" He pressed.

"I am," she confirmed. "Are you?" She hoped convincing him she was alone, it would be enough to put him at his ease. She was a lone woman, offering an olive branch, what harm could she possibly do him without harming herself first. She held her breath, waiting for his decision.

"Wait for me at the South gate," he said briskly. The muted roar of an engine rose in pitch in the background. The kind of noise a boat would making being forced into a turn too tight to be comfortable. He was coming back.

The line clicked off. Shepard pursed her lips and shut off the line from her side, taking a shaky breath. She tapped the cell against her lips.

"Oh, I'll be waiting."

A/N: Next update 02/08/14


	4. Chapter 4

The Study was exactly as Gibbs remembered from earlier in the evening. It was only when he looked closer that he catalogued the details that mattered. He picked up the picture frame lying face down on the desk, trying to remember if it had got knocked over during the argument with Benoit. Jasper Shepard's portrait stared back implacably. He wore full dress uniform and a solemn expression.

"I don't think it did," he said to himself, replacing it exactly as he had found it.

As strange as it sounded, it meant that Shepard must have left it that way deliberately. His fingers drifted to the drawers on the right hand desk pedestal. One small movement later shared the contents of the top drawer. Papers, a miscellany of desk objects and an empty magazine clip. No gun. He sat down heavily in the chair.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing," he said drily, catching sight of her abandoned cell phone and a half empty tumbler of bourbon. "You never did have much of a stomach for wet work."

The thought struck him that there was another party involved in this, without suffering that particular drawback.

"Kort," he said under his breath, reaching for his cell. The line clicked open almost immediately.

"Special agent Gibbs, what can I do for you?"

Gibbs decided he had never hated an English accent more, than when it came from this man. It grated over every inch of his skin.

"I was wondering if you had found your Frog yet." Gibbs drawled. He thought about putting his feet up on Shepard's desk, then thought better of it. If she walked in through the front door she'd kick his ass from here to the coast. If she walked in through the front door, he'd ream her out for making him worry.

"We're working on it, I can assure you."

"We'd be happy to help," Gibbs pulled a face. How the hell did Shepard say this bullshit day in day out and sound like she meant it? "Pool our resources?" He moved his tongue around his teeth, like the words tasted unpleasant.

"Oh, you already are, or didn't you know." Kort's tone carried a thick layer of patronising smugness.

"I know the Director has taken a personal interest in the case," Gibbs led. The longer he spoke to Kort, the more certain he was that she had spoken to the CIA agent. He'd have McGee check the second he got off the line.

"Yes, she has. Strange isn't it?"

There was an ominous silence. Gibbs curled his empty hand into a fist.

"If anything happened to her." Gibbs gritted out. "Anything."

"Don't tell me you've lost track of your Director?" Kort's oily reply set a chill down Gibbs spine. It was a paraphrase of Gibbs own words earlier in the day, only Gibbs had been referring to the CIA's inability to keep tabs on the Frog after a car bombing aimed at the arms dealer's daughter had spooked the man.

Gibbs let the question go unanswered.

"You've worked with him for long enough," Gibbs prompted. "You've studied him, you _know_ him. What he would do, where he would go. Where is he?"

"Oh, I know him. But not like she does," Kort sneered. "She has…other information. Don't tell me she's been keeping secrets from you, of all people, Agent Gibbs?"

"Me? Of all people?"

"I had a very illuminating conversation about your time in Paris. You sent her under cover. You lost her then too, didn't you?"

"She never told you that," Gibbs leant forward, entirely focused on the cell in his hand. He closed his eyes, blocking out the all too vivid memories. Their mission in Marseilles had passed. He had dared to put the incident in the restroom behind him, and then had come Paris. He was hampered by their encounter, it made him question every order he ever gave her. It was that much harder to put the job first with her in the mix.

It didn't help that she made rookie mistakes he blamed himself for, or that every effort he made to correct her she took so personally. He had never worked with someone so infuriating before. Sometimes it wasn't even what she said, it was what she didn't say. Her stony silence acid-etched the atmosphere. He had been married for crissakes. He knew 'nothing' meant the exact damn opposite.

_They were in his hotel bedroom, because the light was better. His room faced the street, hers the internal light well. The connecting door between the rooms stood wide open. She was sweeping her hair under a black wig, cut into a bob, at the dresser. He was going through ops photos, memorising faces, when he had thrown them on a side table and raised his voice at her blatantly ignoring him._

_"__What?"_

_"__I speak the language like a native. I can find my way across the city blindfolded. I can do this better than you, admit it."_

_"__No…"_

_"__I can look after myself."_

_Green eyes stared out at him under jet black hair that curled short against her jawline. It made her look like a furious imp._

"I couldn't possibly divulge my sources. What I do know is that one of the Russians took a shine to her, until she put a barrel against his balls. I've never seen a gun that small but the way it was told to me was that you could have heard a pin drop when she went ahead and cocked it."

"This'd better be going somewhere," Gibbs said murderously. They had been tracking a smuggling ring, trafficking everything from drugs to arms to people. They had followed a couple of foot soldiers, nothing more. He had been holding off taking them down in the hope that they would lead them to something bigger. Someone bigger. She was impatient. He hadn't realised _how_ impatient until he had taken his eye off her for less than a minute. She had vanished.

"It was a bordello at the back of a gambling den. I'm guessing she followed a tail a step too far. Our mutual friend was responsible for getting her out."

It explained a connection, but not the inveterate hatred that drove her behaviour. Not unless there was more to the story. For his own part, he had immediately called for backup and they had tossed the joint, but Shepard was nowhere to be found. She had walked back into the hotel they were staying in hours later. She was distant and freezing cold. He gritted his teeth, hating the way the memories felt even years after the fact.

"If you say so," Gibbs said evenly.

"I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. You trained her well, Gibbs. Jennifer Shepard can take care of herself." There was a hint of grudging approval on the line.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."

"You might say that I too, have taken a _personal_ interest. Don't worry. You'll get your precious Director back," Kort said drily.

"There will be a warrant out on Benoit by the morning," Gibbs warned.

"I won't stand in your way." With an air of finality, Kort ended the call. "I'm sure we'll speak again."

Gibbs crushed the cell in his palm. He had little, if any, trust that the CIA agent was safeguarding Shepard or the interests of NCIS. Kort was, and always had been far more interested in preserving his own affairs.

He stabbed at speed dial.

"McGee."

"Boss, it hasn't moved." There was an expectant silence, making Gibbs smile grimly.

"Were there any other calls made from this address after the call from Benoit?"

"The last call was from the Frog?" McGee's voice carried an overtone of surprise, which was corrected swiftly. "Umm, from her cell phone or landline?"

Gibbs didn't bother replying and within seconds McGee had filled in the gaps for himself.

"Checking both. Nothing there, Boss. No calls out."

"Can you tell if another cell was used from here?"

"Not easily, I mean I could check the cell tower traffic but its needle in a haystack stuff."

"Do that." Gibbs hung up thoughtfully. What he really wanted was for McGee to access Kort's cell records and go through the voices in the calls. He'd be able to pick out Jen's a mile off. There was no way he could ask for that over an unsecured line. He could however, ask for it if he was in the office.

With McGee.

Gibbs rubbed a reluctant palm over his face. However much he wanted to be here when Jen got back, he could be of more use driving his team towards her than lying in wait alone.

He'd let himself out. She wouldn't even be aware he had been there.

…][…

In the dark interior of a car, Kort studied a second screen the size of an ordinary sat nav. It carried a yellow dot lurching along a network of spaghetti like roads towards the harbour.


	5. Chapter 5

Kort lifted his palm to his nose, seeking out the traces of the scent Jennifer Shepard wore. Honey. Jasmine? He snuffed it in with a single sharp intake of breath and held it in his lungs, much like the first breath from opening a new foil-sealed pack of Fortnum & Mason's tea leaves. These were small pleasures to be savoured.

"Why is NCIS calling you?" commented a flat voice from the back of the car. "Agent Gibbs?"

"Not your concern," Kort shut down the question, returning his hand to discretely adjust himself. His eyes followed the trajectory of the jerky yellow blip on the tiny screen, rather than acknowledging the man shrouded in shadow. "What _is_ your concern, is that the evidence follows a particular pattern."

The man sighed irritably. "It makes things more complicated."

"Complicated," Kort agreed curtly. "But necessary."

Kort placed the device into a holder attached to the windscreen and reached for the ignition key.

"Is the target expecting me?"

"On the contrary, if anything."

"I don't like mind games."

Kort lifted his eyes to the rear view mirror, mentally scanning the conversation he had just had with Gibbs. He realised belatedly that he should have been more careful. His weapon of choice was tried and tested. Government sponsored even, but now held more information that strictly necessary to execute the job in hand. It gave Kort an uneasy feeling and if there was anything he disliked, it was a loose end.

There had been indications of late that the weapon may be misfiring. He put them aside for now, they were…inconvenient. It did mean however, that if an excuse was needed, tonight would add accelerant to an already flickering flame, and ultimately make his job easier. Disposal was always distasteful, but often opened opportunities for an upgrade. He forced himself to relax. His co-conspirator looked away out of a side window rather than meet his stare. Kort studied his profile.

He didn't look like a killer, Kort pondered, but then, what did a killer look like? His build was unexceptional, his features unremarkable, outside of the deadness in his eyes. He could be charming. A certain type of woman enjoyed his company. He thought about Shepard and discarded it swiftly, shifting uncomfortably. If it went well, there would be no conversation.

"Consider it more along the lines of politics."

"I don't like politics either."

"Just get it done," Kort's patience snapped. "No collateral damage."

Kort put the car in gear and pulled away from the kerb, calculating a more direct route than the one shown on the satnav. The man in the back of the car stared fixedly out of the window at the blurred grey cityscape rushing past.

…][…

"I should have asked him who she might have called," McGee berated himself.

"Who whom called?" queried Ziva, peering around the edge of her computer screen from the desk diagonally opposite.

"The Director," McGee replied irritably.

"Weren't you tracking her cell for Gibbs?"

"Yeah, it's at her home," replied McGee, typing furiously.

"And where is Gibbs?"

"Not sure," said McGee distracted. "But he's not happy," he finished plaintively.

"He said he was going to take care of the Director," Ziva sat back.

McGee looked startled for a moment and reached for his keyboard again. Seconds later, he piped up, "that's weird."

"What is?"

"He's in the same location as the Director's cell."

"So, with the Director."

"Nuh huh. I don't think so. He asked me to trace stuff he could just ask her for." McGee shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "The signals are separating."

"Maybe he doesn't want to."

"Maybe she's not there."

"And the last person she spoke to was Benoit?"

"As far as we know," said McGee dubiously.

"Kidnapping?

"I don't know. The whole situation between those two is weird."

"The Director and Benoit?"

McGee gave Ziva a significant look.

Ziva settled back in her chair. He meant Gibbs and the Director. What McGee didn't know wouldn't hurt him, probably; although the same could hardly be said of Tony. She certainly wasn't going to volunteer a confidence. Not when she wasn't certain she had it all straight herself.

Jenny had never actually admitted anything, but then silence often spoke louder than words. The way the Director and Gibbs behaved around each other in the office was a strange juxtaposition of partners and antagonists. It could be so easily be put down to student outstripping mentor, except there was _more._

Ari had said so when he read the file and demanded to meet Jenny. At the time, Ziva had seen no harm in it. Now she was not so sure, that it wasn't that night, when Ari had become fixated. Ziva tracked over the conversation with Jenny, after Ari had left.

Jenny had been curled up on the couch nursing a glass of wine when Ziva returned from seeing Ari out. The tea towel with its cargo of ice lay discarded on the coffee table.

_"Who is he?"_

_"My half brother."_

_"No," Jenny said slowly. "I mean who is he really?"_

_Ziva shrugged, as if she was not certain exactly what was being asked. There was trust between them, but as ever with outsiders, a residual reticence. Eventually, she said, "like me."_

_"Mossad?" _

_"Of course."_

_"Not exactly like you." Ziva watched Jenny stare into her wine, suddenly quiet._

_"What do you mean?" She joined her on the couch, drawing her feet up under her to make herself more comfortable._

_"He likes to kill," Jenny stated softly._

_"It comes with the territory," Ziva replied offhand. _

_"__No, it doesn't."_

_Jenny flexed the fingers on her right hand, adjusting around the bowl of the glass. The back of the hand was red and swollen, distinctly bruised._

_"__You've seen that move before. I could tell by your face, but you let him do it to you anyway."_

_"__You're right, I knew what I was doing," Jenny turned to face her host. "I wanted to know what sort of person he really was. Why he was so interested in Gibbs?"_

_"Because he is interested in you."_

_Jenny turned away._

_"Gibbs is gone."_

_For a split second, Ziva thought Jenny looked mournful. _

_"__From this country, yes. From you I am not so sure. I'm sorry, I should have told Ari to come back later."_

_"No, I'm sorry." Jenny looked down at her damaged hand. "I didn't expect...it to hurt so much." _

_"He is a man who wants what he wants."_

_Jenny had stared at her blankly. Ziva had been talking about Ari. She thought for a moment that Jenny was talking about her old partner._

_"You care very much for him," Ziva said tentatively._

_"__Relationships change."_

_"__People do not."_

McGee broke her from her reverie. "I think I might have something."

Ziva rose and padded across the office space to McGee's desk. She took up a position behind him, leaning on him to look over his shoulder. McGee regarded her nervously and licked his suddenly dry lips. She leant on him a little heavier to direct his attention.

"Show me."

"So Gibbs wanted to know if there were any outgoing calls from the Director's place not on her landline or cell."

"And…"

"There are two towers that a call would hit from there," he pointed to a map on his screen centred on the Director's house. "Here and here."

"Which one?"

"Umm doesn't really matter. What matters is the calls that fit the time window."

"How many?"

"Thousands." McGee's screen flicked to a list of cell numbers, times and packet information. "So, I cross-referenced those with numbers that the Director's cell had received a call from in the last week. Gibbs' number came up a lot." The screen flickered to a second list with similar information.

"She is going to kill you."

"She has to be alive to do that."

McGee winced as Ziva smacked him half-heartedly on the shoulder. It was a possibility, however unpleasant. Ziva squinted at the highlighted rows and their time stanps.

"If she is, I would not recommend that you tell her you know Gibbs calls her alot."

McGee took in a sharp breath at Ziva's sudden stillness. It was unnerving, the same but different from when Gibbs did the same thing when he was thinking. He flipped back to the cell tower listings. "Kort also called her. Tonight. About the right time." He turned awkwardly in his chair so that he could see Ziva's face. "He's on our side, right?"

"I think he is on his own side," said Ziva under her breath.

…][…

Shepard squeezed her left wrist with her right hand, and in one easy movement, switched hands to hook a finger into her right hand sleeve to read the time off her watch. It was a move she used to mask the fact that she could never remember which wrist she wore her watch on. Undercover with Gibbs, they had taken on a role replacing a dead mobster and his girlfriend. Left-handed girlfriend. Her perfectionist nature meant she had taught herself to shoot left handed, but it was Gibbs silent exasperation that made her wear her watch on her right wrist long after the op was over. She did it now some mornings without thinking about it.

A small square, the size of a postage stamp peeled away from her sleeve and spun as it fell, gleaming in the light from the street lamp. Shepard snatched at it, holding it close to her face to inspect it. She squinted her eyes, taking in the thin plastic embedded with a printed circuit sticking to the fingertip of her glove. Her heart jumped into her throat.

"You bastard," she swore. "Me first."

Angrily she tore the tiny patch in half and dropped the pieces, knowing the damage was done. Tony had used something similar to stick to La Grenouille's luggage. It was a tracker. The owner could only be Kort. From this location there was really only one destination, which meant that Kort would know she was heading for the harbour.

As close as she had come to La Grenouille, he had always managed, somehow, to pull away at the last moment. If Kort got to him first, Shepard was certain it would happen again. This time, it would be the final time. The Frog was running for his life. He had turned back for Shepard. It would be the ultimate betrayal for him to find Kort at the docks rather than herself. Maybe he deserved it, she thought. Her face twisted in to a mask of hate. No, she decided. She deserved her moment. Her one tiny moment in all of this hateful thing between them.

She dragged on her helmet, checked the Glock handgun remained secure in the back of her waistband and kicked viciously to start the bike. The bike squealed away, leaving the layby with a smear of smoking rubber.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Trigger warning, just to be safe. Violence and dubious consent

...][...

Gibbs swept into the bullpen with tired eyes and a fresh takeout coffee.

"What have we got?"

"We need more evidence," Ziva groused from her position stooped over McGee.

"I'm working on it," McGee replied with a resigned tone. "The company that owned the limo Tony's car was following…"

"Before it was blown up," interjected Ziva.

"Before it was blown up," McGee repeated, tentatively tapping at his keyboard. "Is a shell company, owned by another company in the Caymans." McGee angled his head back and raised his eyebrows, blinking rapidly. "Which is a subsidiary of an import-export business with offices in Nairobi, Paris, Capetown…"

McGee glanced at his impassive Boss. "It's complicated."

"Give me some good news."

"I've got the accounts that were filed for the last five years, it's highly profitable."

His comments were met with an unearthly silence.

"I'm tracing as much of the company hierarchy as I can find. A lot of it is buried. Like a shell within a shell? I'm getting any assets they have listed, but mostly its leases…"

"And?"

Gibbs took a sip of scalding coffee, managing to never take his eyes of the young agent.

"Umm," McGee gulped nervously. "Well, I hacked into over a dozen lease providers for corporate assets."

"And?" Gibbs pressed.

"I'm cross referencing," McGee said helplessly.

"Ziva, anything your contacts can turn up."

"I can try, but he has always been careful" she confirmed, straightening her back. She braced her hands close to the small of her back and groaned softly.

"When you've made your calls, get some rest," Gibbs growled quietly. "I'll track down a Judge." Tony would have done it usually, but Shepard had given him a sabbatical to get his head together. Falling for La Grenouille's daughter had done more damage than anyone had expected, especially Tony. Gibbs rolled his eyes towards the dark glass of the skylight. He would be all right. In time. Relationships were …complicated. He made his way behind his own desk and rolled his head slowly from one side to the other.

He thought of Shepard out in the field on her own. In her time he would have had no qualms about her holding her own, but the fact was, she had been out of the field for God knows how long. She swapped the thrill of the chase for schmooze and rubber chicken dinners. He had no doubt about her ability, but the fact of the matter was, some instincts only stay honed with perpetual use. The kind of instincts that keep a body alive.

She'd had to work to keep up in the field, whereas the job she did now appeared to be all but effortless. His mouth twisted sourly. He owned up to the fact that he didn't really have an effective technique for handling her in Director mode. She was as far away from him in the office one floor up, as she ever had been across the pond.

Shepard didn't have a sense of humour when it came to this guy. The question was why. She wasn't giving any clues outside of her borderline obsession. He made a point of evaluating the state of the rest of the team. Both his agents looked as weary as he felt. Without Tony on board as the class clown, the work seemed to drag them down more than usual. The dubious involvement of the Director had got to be making it worse.

He turned to McGee.

"Can you run another search while you're thing does its thing?" Gibbs stirred the air with his finger aimed at McGee's computer.

"Sure Boss. I mean, it could slow things down."

"Use Tony's."

"Err…ok."

McGee moved warily to the chair behind DiNozzo's desk. He seated himself carefully, as if expecting the chair to collapse under him at any moment.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Tell me everything you know about Trent Kort's cell traffic this evening."

McGee got to his feet. "I should run it from my desk," he explained nervously, glancing at Ziva. The program would still be open on a page behind the corporate searches. All he had to do was key in the new mobile number. He was pretty sure it would be encrypted, the CIA didn't hand out leads like that like candy. "It's a software thing," he explained lamely.

Gibbs turned to his own monitor and waggled the mouse to bring it to life, aware in his periphery of McGee dropping into his customary chair in what looked like relief. Under his breath he said disparagingly, "a software thing,"

Behind her own desk, Ziva David picked up her desk 'phone, punched some numbers and swivelled her chair to turn her back to McGee, and more importantly, Gibbs.

…][…

The harbour was as quiet as it ever got. Waves slopped against the harbour wall, boats tested their moorings against the slight swell on the water with a creak and a groan. The slight breeze brought the smell of captive seawater with the oily overtone of gasoline to Shepard's nostrils. The hairs on the back of her neck rose with every tick of the cooling engine between her legs. She sat statue still with the helmet looped over one wrist, still astride the bike, alert for any reason to kick it into life and roar away.

This was as close as she could get without abandoning the bike. Between her and the silent hulls stood a seven foot wire fence. The gate, dimly lit, housed a stainless steel keypad to one side. Beyond it pontoons stretched out, clustered with money afloat. At every mooring a light glimmered at ankle height in the gloom.

Somewhere in the darkness, a halyard clinked against a masthead like a bell striking time. Shepard let her eyes get accustomed to the shades of dark and the constantly moving background of shifting shapes. There was a rhythm to it that would have been peaceful at any other time. A gull called mournfully overhead making her startle. She swore softly under her breath, cursing the darkness, the lateness of the hour and the man that had brought her here.

A grey shape detached itself from the one of the vessels. She stiffened her posture, feeling the comforting jut of the gun against her spine. Head down between its shoulders, the figure of a man moved cautiously into the light. His shape was unmistakeable to her. La Grenouille. She drew breath and held it, not trusting herself to speak. He ambled to the gate, set his fingers to the wire and stared at her and the bike, eventually cocking his head to one side before he spoke in his heavily accented english.

"You have me guessing still. Am I to come to you?"

"Not yet," she said sharply. There was no clean shot. If she took aim from here, the chances were the bullets would chip the wire and deflect away, throwing away her only chance. He would turn tail and be out of reach before she could reach the fence to push the muzzle of the gun through to take aim again. "I came alone, as agreed. I can make arrangements, if you are serious about coming in."

He dipped his head in acquiescence and reached for the door release on his side. "A drink then, while we wait?" The wire door stood open, held ajar for her.

Shepard dismounted, carrying the motorcycle helmet with her. She squared her shoulders and swallowed her hatred. She needed close quarters for what she planned. "How do I know you are alone?"

He shrugged casually, "my word, as a gentleman."

'_My word, as a gentleman_.' Shepard smiled tightly, the words reverberated around her head. She had heard them before, when she had reached too far, too fast. "Your word," she repeated. "No replacement for Henri?" She passed through the gate and heard it swing shut behind her. Benoit had lost his long time bodyguard in the blast that blew DiNozzo's car to pieces.

La Grenouille fell in beside her and gestured ahead. "No, it did not seem kind with things coming to an end. This way."

At the next gate, she stopped suddenly, staring up into Benoit's face, trying to read the expression in the half light. It felt for a moment as if he had guessed what she had planned. He let her study his face before reaching for the motorcycle helmet, taking it from her unresisting fingers. "Allow me." He offered a small smile and ushered her through.

She half expected him to give her his arm. "You're taking quite a risk," she said evenly. She stepped with him towards the end of the pontoon. A sleek hull rose to her left, another to her right. She caught sight of the name, _Mauretania._

"I had hoped you would call," he said gently. "Your persistence in the game…"

"It's not a game," she said coldly.

"Of course not. A figure of speech only. Shall we?" He handed her up on to a short gangplank.

"You don't really expect to leave here alive?" She asked pointedly, strolling away from him along the deck. The vantage of height gave her a better view of the pontoon and surrounding area. She glanced back the way they had come. A pair of headlights swung into view and vanished. It could have been nothing, but her grip on the handrail tightened imperceptibly. Company was coming, she could feel it, and the last thing she wanted was a witness, especially Kort.

Benoit put the helmet on a bench seat against the superstructure of the boat.

"No…foreplay. Madame Directeur?"

"About as much as you gave me," she hissed. Her stomach clenched, the urge to vomit almost made her stagger.

"So long to carry hatred in your heart," he admonished. He tipped his head back and sniffed the air.

"As long as you have known exactly who I was."

"Not at first," he admitted slowly. "But then, you look so much like your Mother. No-one was more surprised to see you there than I, I can assure you."

"You gave your word then too, remember?"

"And here you are. Alive." He shrugged apologetically. "The Russians are no fools. You played a hooker, I played along. I said you were for me. It was the best I could do in the circumstances. It helped that you were…quite convincing, thinking of someone else, no doubt. I always regretted that we did not have more time together after." He looked behind himself briefly, then moved past Shepard towards the door to staterooms. "Cognac? Inside. Where it is warmer," he urged.

"I will see you dead," she spat.

He smiled briefly, squinting his eyes as if looking past her. "Your bullets are below decks."

"Gibbs gave me a refill," she stated coolly, reaching for the glock in her waistband. In her fury, she almost missed the sound of a gun cocking by her ear. She hadn't heard footsteps at all.

A soft male voice beside her ear said, "that won't be necessary." She froze.

She didn't recognise the voice, it certainly wasn't Kort. There was a flatness to the tone that made her skin crawl. Benoit had lied, although at the time, she could have sworn he was telling the truth. There had been a bodyguard after all.

Benoit held his palms in view and pursed his lips at her reaction. "He is not yours?" he asked curiously.

She stared at him trying to mask her panic, caught off guard by the thought that the man with the gun was not who she thought he was. She addressed the man behind her, thinking on her feet, "Kort sent you."

"Very good, Director," the voice behind her purred. "He was concerned for your safety."

Benoit stiffened. Shepard gritted her teeth, thinking that was the least of the things Kort should be worried about if she made it out of here, and then concentrated on doing exactly that.

"I don't think you understand," she turned slowly to bring her body side on to the man behind her, with her back to the superstructure. He took a pace backwards, leaving his right arm was extended, pointing a weapon with a silencer at Benoit. Shepard continued, "La Grenouille and I have a little unfinished business."

She risked a glance at the new arrival. He was her height or so, heavily built, wearing dark cargo pants and a thick, dark cable knit sweater. He never took his eyes off Benoit, although she was sure if she made a move he would react appropriately. He had the same aura of compressed energy around him that Gibbs had, ready to explode into action as soon as the need arose. He also moved like a ghost. His cold smile made her shiver.

"Draw your weapon, slowly," he instructed. "No sudden moves."

With a studied casualness she moved as if to put her right hand behind her back, stepped forward suddenly to wind her left arm around the shooter's right and heaved it upwards. She struck him under the chin with the heel of her right hand, feeling rather than hearing the sickening crunch of his jaws closing one against the other. His gun clattered on the deck and slithered under the rail into the water.

In the scant second that he took to grunt in pain, she had bent to grasp the motorcycle helmet from the seat behind her and used it to smash him across his face. He staggered backwards, overbalanced and toppled over the rail, bounced half on the pontoon below and slipped into the water between the yacht and the mooring. She dropped the helmet.

"Hurry!" she called to Benoit, walking briskly towards him. "We don't have much time."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Give me your hand." She offered her left hand, gesturing to his right. As soon as he made the move to reach for her, she grabbed for him, feeling for the pinch point that would buy her a second of time. It would be all she needed. She squeezed hard, keeping hold as Benoit jerked to a halt and hissed in pain. She drew the glock in one smooth movement and pressed it to the side of his temple.

"Tell my Father I said hello."

She turned her face and pulled the trigger, releasing her grip on the man as he lurched backwards, staggered a single step and crashed over the rail.

The sound of the gunshot was obscenely loud, as was the splash Benoit made entering the water. The rope holding the yacht in place groaned. Shepard dropped to a crouch, scanning for untoward sounds. There was nothing, just the quiet slop of waves against the hull and the creak of the vessel against its mooring. She scuttled to the gap in the rail that heralded the start of the gangplank and peered around the side, before drawing back just as swiftly.

There was no guarantee the hired gun was out of action. _Never underestimate your opponent_, Gibbs' dry admonishment rattled in her head. He had said it standing over her prone body in the gym and then helped her up and spent a half an hour behind a body bag letting her get rid of her frustration. Then he corrected how she punched until every hit she made, made him stifle a grunt.

She breathed steadily, trying to counter the adrenaline coursing through her veins that wanted her to run heedlessly in whatever direction safety offered itself. She forced herself to think, to plan if the gunman reappeared between her and the gates. He had lost his gun, she was sure of it. She was equally sure that he would have a back up, or at the very least, a knife. She had the best part of a clip, what she needed was distance. It was unlikely she would be able to take him by surprise a second time. She scrabbled for the motorcycle helmet, lifting it silently when her questing fingers found it so that she made no sound and looping it over her left arm.

Tentatively she made her way down the gangplank, straining for any sound, reaching for any untoward movement in the grey shapes around her. She ran for the first gate, snatching it open with trembling fingers that also held the gun. She knew she should drop it in the water, but couldn't bring herself to do it. A scuff sounded behind her. She slammed the gate and sighted the barrel through the bars of the gate, left and right, but saw nothing. She rattled the gate, testing it for complete closure and ran.

By the time she reached the wire gate with the motorcycle just beyond, she was sobbing. Gasping for breath, she cranked back the handle and let herself out, dragging the gate soundly shut behind her. It wouldn't hold him if he was coming for her. There was nothing to say that he was. There was nothing to say that he wasn't. She struck towards the bike, scrambling inelegantly aboard and firing it with one hand, stuffing the gun back in her waistband with the other. With the helmet still looped over her arm, she tore out of the small car park, gritting her teeth against them trying to chatter their way out of her mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

Kort drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Jonas Cobb carried nothing on him that could be traced back to Kort. No earwig, no transmitter, nothing. Complete deniability. Complete isolation from the action. His frustration grew. It shouldn't have taken this long, even if Shepard was there. Unless something was wrong. He fondled a gun in his lap, sweeping the pad on his thumb over the clip catch and back again.

A darker shadow separated itself from the grey shapes around it. Kort stiffened and squinted into the gloom, relaxing marginally as the shape drew closer. He stowed the gun back in an ankle holster and flicked the central locking off.

With the opening of a rear door, the stink of the harbour invaded the inside of the car, not relenting when Cobb drew himself inside fully and slammed the door.

Kort eyed the sodden mess that slumped itself on the back seat of his sedan.

"What happened to you?"

"Tango had company."

"You knew there would be some," Kort replied curtly.

"I have a broken rib," his companion stated dully. "Possible fracture, upper arm."

"And? Report!"

"Benoit's dead, I checked the body. Bullet entered left temporal, thumb tap on his right hand, just as you said. Copycat right? Who was the original?"

Kort didn't reply directly, brushing the question aside. "And your rib? What did you do, fall over a mooring rope?"

"Accidents happen," he replied emptily.

"And the Director?"

"Won't be so lucky next time," Cobb said flatly.

Kort opened his mouth to warn him off, thinking better of it almost immediately. The last thing he wanted to do was draw Cobb's attention to Jenny Shepard. He started the car instead.

"You said you checked the body."

Cobb stared at him impassively. He had already answered the relevant questions, he had no time or inclination for repeats. He took orders from this man, having to be polite wasn't one of them. He had reached a stage in his development where respect was reserved for those who could match him. He knew he could snap the wiry man's neck in a matter of seconds, but for now, he would serve. For now.

"You weren't the shooter. She took you out first."

Cobb looked out of the window, dismissing the sneering note sliding through his handler's voice. He bore no shame from falling to an operative with the upper hand in the moment. But he would remember. And next time, there would be no sneering note, because next time, he would leave no-one alive. He made a mental note to look up the background of the Director of NCIS. From what he heard, from what he saw, he would have killed the bastard too. The desire for consistency in the evidence intrigued him momentarily. Perhaps he would look into that too.

…][…

Shepard could imagine her knuckles, white under the leather of the gloves. The muscles in her hands cramped in protest at the severity of her grip on the handlebars. In a way, the sternness with which she held herself was the only thing stopping her from imploding. When she eventually pulled over to put her helmet on, her hands were trembling so badly she couldn't snap the chin strap shut. She left what remained of the visor up, unable to see through the cracked plastic.

In her mind's eye, Benoit's resigned expression flickered on and off, and with it, the echo of the shot she had turned her face aside from. Acid flooded the back of her throat, she swallowed it down with a bitter grimace.

Deliberately she sucked in air through her nose and panted it out, trying to quell the curdling in her stomach. A lone tear escaped her left eye and trailed to her chin. She wiped it away angrily. She would be sick at some point. She had managed to hide it from Gibbs in the field, but never lost her body's delayed reaction to violent death. Even if the bastard deserved it.

She wouldn't go home. She was a walking bag of trace evidence, from the powder residue on her gloves to the gun she refused to part with. There were plans for every eventuality and whilst the circumstances didn't quite fit the design, there was a bolt hole she could use to clean up. It was risky, but better than any alternative by a mile. Feeling calmer, she tried to loosen the stiffness in her shoulders and worked up the energy to point the motorcycle to a boutique hotel in a quiet part of town.

…][…

Gibbs slammed the handset down. Shepard's cell was still ringing out. If he heard her answerphone message one more time, he'd end up flinging his handset on the floor and stamping on it.

"What's taking so damn long?" Gibbs growled.

"The CIA don't let just anyone see their cell traffic," McGee replied absently. Immediately he stiffened and looked up furtively. Gibb's head swiveled inexorably in McGee's direction. "Sorry, it's encrypted. I have to find a key."

"So, find a key," Gibbs snapped, drawing the last word out. The longer it took, the later it got, the more his gut told him Shepard was in trouble. He called, she answered, that's how it was, every night, up until tonight. Even with Mann around, he called. After. He didn't stay over, neither did she. No reason, just an unspoken non-infringement of the other person's personal space. Mann didn't know or chose to ignore it. She never mentioned it, but then, she never mentioned what passed between her and Shepard, in Shepard's office when she came out reeking of bourbon. And he didn't ask. Female hierarchy wasn't something he wanted to get in between, ever again.

"Right," McGee agreed slowly. His thumb hit the space bar repeatedly. "Almost in."

"And?"

"I tripped something," McGee rubbed his eyes and blinked shut hard. "Sorry. Going again." He clicked his mouse, shifted it, clicked again, looking out of the side of his eyes to check if Gibbs was still staring, gulping uncomfortably when he realised that he was.

Ziva swiveled back in her chair, reading from a small pocketbook. "Mr Trent Kort received a call at approximately twenty-one hundred hours," she checked her watch, "last night, which lasted approximately thirty seconds."

"From?" barked Gibbs.

"A disposable cell located in the Georgetown area."

"Meaning?"

"It could have been from anyone in that area."

"Number?"

"Currently unavailable, must be switched off."

"Number!"

Ziva reeled off the digits and watched Gibbs punch them directly into his cell, shortly before he threw it into the corner behind him in disgust.

"Um, Boss? I don't think it likes it when you do that."

Gibbs turned a deadly stare to McGee. "Do you have _anything_ for me yet, McGee?"

McGee squirmed and lowered his head, looking intently at his monitor instead.

"He then rang another number. Also disposable. No, um, trace available. Currently. Switched off."

Gibbs pushed himself back in his chair and glared at the ceiling. Calling Kort might have been for back up or information. Kort could have called the Frog. Or a second shooter. Gibbs gritted his teeth. Why was it so difficult for Shepard to accept that she could be a target. More importantly, had she considered, in chasing down the Frog, she was essentially screwing over Kort's whole reason for being? Gibbs stretched his back in irritation. Unless he was up to something. If Kort fed Shepard frog's legs, what would that be worth, to him? What would he claim as payment. Gibbs squinted his eyes shut. He didn't like where his mind was going.

McGee system pinged quietly. He clicked tentatively at a new pop-up.

"Oh."

"What!" Gibbs snapped.

"After the Ares project, I left a watch on the name of Grace O'Malley. The alias The Black Rose used?"

"So?"

"She just booked into a hotel, south side, but there's no record of her entering the country."

Gibbs screwed his eyes almost shut. Shepard had commented on the alias, like she knew the name's complete history. He didn't _know_ it was Shepard for sure, but it felt right. He would surprise her. And then wring her scrawny neck. If Kort was there, so much the better.

McGee's system pinged again. McGee groaned.

"I've got a list of leases as long as my arm. Office space, apartments, hotel suites, you should see some of the stuff on here."

"Ziva," Gibbs called. "Help him. Call me when you've got something." He stooped to pick up his cell from the floor and brushed imaginary dust off it, smirking when the flip top separated from the body of the unit. Breaking something made him feel lighter. The expectation that he might be sneaking up on Shepard made him feel almost pleasurable.

Gibbs sauntered over to Tony's stack of cabinets. From the third drawer down, he pulled out a box and extracted a new handset. He tossed the empty box and the remains of his old handset on McGee's table.

"Where are you going?" McGee asked with a note of uncertainty in his voice. He still didn't want to look into the Boss's eyes. There was an undercurrent in this whole investigation that made him about as uncomfortable as when Colonel Mann and Gibbs had first hit it off. It was like being the third wheel at a dinner party for two.

Gibbs strode out of the bullpen.

"Florist."

Ziva and McGee stared at their Boss's rapidly departing back.

"Transfer my calls," Gibbs called over his shoulder. "Handset's broken."

"I thought he was going to find a Judge," McGee grunted to Ziva, scrolling through the lines of assets and locations, looking for a pattern, or absence of one.

"He left his coffee," Ziva commented. "I think he is not looking for what we are looking for."

A/N: Cobb is a byblow of Operation Frankenstein mentioned later in the NCIS series. Afficionados will know him as the port-to-port killer and also that his handler was Trent Kort.

Grace O'Malley controlled part of the Irish coastline in the time of Elizabeth I. She taxed the shipping using these waters, leading her to be accused of piracy. This will wrap up in 2.


	8. Chapter 8

"If I was an international arms dealer, where would I hide out?" McGee muttered. "Look at this stuff, there's even a yacht."

"Do you think he's a yacht type?" Ziva queried.

McGee made a grab for his phone, rapidly punching numbers from his screen.

"NCIS, I'd like to talk to the Harbour Master please. Yes, I know what time it is. It's urgent." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and hissed at Ziva.

"Get Gibbs!"

Ziva stood up, raking the distance between the area housing the desks and the elevator banks. The steel doors were just starting to open.

"We don't have anything yet."

"I have a feeling," McGee grumbled.

"You have a gut?"

"Feeling," McGee corrected crossly. "I have a gut feeling. You have to stop him."

Ziva weighed her options. "It still has to go through legal."

"But it will go faster with Gibbs behind it," McGee insisted, "yes, the _Mauretania,_ anyone look like they might be living on it?" he added to the phone. McGee's head started to nod and his adam's apple bobbed frantically. "Nationality? Alone?" he fired. "Which pier? Are there any cameras. No, no that's ok, don't approach the vessel, but if you can get someone to keep watch? Yes, I'll call back."

"Ziva?..." McGee stood up, just in time to see the end of her long black ponytail disappear between the closing doors of the elevator. He balled his hand into a fist and did a mini pump. "Yes!"

…][…

Shepard let the scalding hot water drum against her bare skin, concentrating on how the needle like pain had muted into a burn her body had become accustomed to – just like how she had accommodated the events in the brothel and the aftermath. There should be nothing now, because La Grenouille was dead. There should be, but there wasn't. The evening caught up with her in a whirl of colour, sensation and sound.

She had shared the meagre contents of her stomach with the toilet bowl already tonight, this time it was a mouth full of bile that found its way to the bottom of the shower stall, followed by the gut wrenching squeeze of drier retching. She rested her forehead against the non-judgemental cool white of the tile wall, trying not to think of anything at all.

The healing stroke back then had been Gibbs.

_She probably looked like a drowned rat. She had been walking and then it had started raining. Or maybe it had been raining before. The weather soaked through her coat, through her blouse, skirt, nylons and slopped in her shoes. The cold meant that she no longer felt the evening air as anything other than hurrying droplets down her body. The Paris sidewalk pattered beneath her feet, lit garishly by the neon lights from the hotel foyer. She turned towards them._

_Her room key didn't work. Hands shaking she tried again, scraping metal against the keyhole and landing her shoulder against the door with a soft thump. She waggled he door knob uselessly, sniffing and swallowing to keep her rebellious insides inside. She imagined she could still taste him. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and pulled the door towards her, hoping to free the latch. _

_'__Espèce de merde,' she heard herself say it over. Piece of shit, piece of shit, like the Frenchwoman had whispered, narrow as a boy, while the pasty faced Russian exhausted himself against the woman's bony rump. The dapper Frenchman turned the woman onto her back and spat into his hand to make sure she could take him, as if Shepard's mouth had been too dry. He flattened himself against the woman's body, legs splayed out behind him, flexing at the knee at every thrust, like he was doing the breaststroke out of water._

_The door handle ripped itself clean out of her hand._

_Gibbs._

_She let her eyes drift up to his face, away from the round neck of his pristine white tee bisecting the base of his neck. Tension showed itself in tight tendons and the set of his shoulders. His eyes narrowed from the bottom up and his head jerked back when she met his eyes, as if she had slapped him in the face. His hair was darker, it made him look younger, angrier, sharpening the distinctive planes of his face. Wordlessly he held the door open and stood aside. The heat his eyes held took their warmth with them. She stumbled in, leaving the key, only to halt seconds later, disorientated. There were papers left out on the bed, a man's shoe on its side, an open trouser press. Wrong room. His room, she should be next door._

_Gibbs reappeared in front of her, gripping her upper arms lightly and giving her a small shake to make her look up. It made her teeth rattle, or maybe it was the cold._

_"__You ok?"_

_He had that look in his eye which meant that any answer was going to be the wrong one. She answered hoarsely._

_"__Cold." _

_He propelled her towards the shower. His shower. Still warm with steam and smelling of soap, he must have not been long out of it. She stood off to one side while he turned on the jets._

_"__Get in." Brusque words brushed past her._

_She heard him stop when she stepped into it fully clothed, heard the short, open mouthed huff he made. The kind that belonged to moments when he was trying to come to terms with something that took him unawares. She couldn't bring herself to care, the water was too hot, like pinpricks, the air was saturated, almost too heavy to breathe. She leant her forehead on the tile, along with a palm and almost closed her eyes. Would have, except that Gibbs had gotten in beside her, fully clothed. _

_"__What happened?" Gibbs low soft rumble warmed her ear, his large hands dragging at the collar of her coat eased it off her arms._

_"__I made a mistake."_

_"__You're probably lucky to be alive."_

_"__Am I?"_

_"__What did you see?"_

_The fact that he was debriefing her registered vaguely. She clung to the cadence of his voice, the normalcy of 'this is what happens when you get out, get back.' His deft fingers slid the blouse buttons through their retainers, slipping it off her shoulders. It gave her something to focus on._

_"__The shipment is Arms. I couldn't tell if he was a middleman or the destination."_

_"__Who?"_

_His thumbs were under the waistband of her skirt, both sides sweeping to the back, feeling for the closer. It made her shiver. _

_"__The dealer."_

_"__Name?"_

_"__La Grenouille," she said bitterly._

_She took a shaky step out of the pool of clothing, reaching to roll the nylons off and dropping them where they may._

_"__Did you hear them called anything else?"_

_"__I know his name." Vitriol splashed across every word. She knew his name, much more than his name in fact._

_His hands closed over her shoulders, his voice close to her ear. "If you ever, ever do that again."_

_"__The case is further forward," she stated, strength returning to her voice. She tore herself away from the self-loathing threatening to overwhelm her, repositioning an idea. Planning. "We know what to look for. Who we are looking for." If it was the last thing she ever did, she was going to make that man pay._

_"__We? You, are not doing anything." His fingers dropped away._

_"__I was doing my job!"_

_"__You put the whole operation in jeopardy!" His voice was rising, strident and accusative. She turned to face him, reaching behind herself to unclasp her bra, suddenly strangled by the remaining clothing and in a hurry to scrub herself clean. The discrete holder clipped inbetween the cups flapped open as it fell._

_"__I was fine!" She flung the offending garment to the floor and reached for her panties._

_"__You were nowhere!" He bellowed, leaning in so that his face was inches from hers. The last time he did that she had kissed him. Sex was the last thing on her mind, but it still took every shred of control to not look at his mouth._

_Shepard stared into his deadly blue gaze instead. "Maybe I stayed out to get some," she hissed. The muscle above her right eye twitching forced her to blink and break the stare._

_She stepped free of her remaining underwear. The soap found its way into her hand, she put it across her belly, up over one breast, then the other, briskly rubbing to raise a lather._

_There hadn't been anything since Marseilles. She hadn't been expecting wine and roses, but he was all business by the time they'd hit Paris. It wasn't that he said anything, 'don't touch' was all over his body language. It was like waking up in an alternate reality where Marseilles had never happened. _

_He caught the wrist of the hand holding the soap. "Where's your knife?"_

_"__I left it with a friend," she said sweetly. His eyes narrowed shrewdly, moving his hand to align their fingers. She didn't resist when their combined hands drifted between her legs._

_"__I need to know if I'm looking at damage control here." His voice had grown coarser, harsh enough to send a prickle scrambling up her spine._

_The callouses on his fingertips slid smoothly over her sensitive skin. Goosebumps coursed up her back and down her arms. Whatever he was looking for wasn't damage control, it felt more like patrolling his territory for evidence of incursion. The first hint of a flush warmed itself at the base of her throat._

_"__No, you're not." On some level she recognised her own voice, but the timbre was deeper and she was short of air all of a sudden. But then the air between worlds was supposed to be thin._

_She let herself move into his space, trapping his wrist with her thighs and withdrawing her own hand. She could feel her eyes closing when he didn't pull back. She reached up to tug at the back of his neck, whispering into the heat of his skin to do her bidding._

_"__Don't stop."_


	9. Chapter 9

Gibbs glanced in surprise at Ziva joining him in the elevator. Despite what must have been a mad dash across the office, she didn't look out of breath in the slightest. He held in the first stirrings of annoyance, his conscience was bothering himself enough as it was without his team coming after him to remind him where his duty lay. If anyone deserved to be an outlet for his anger, it was himself. He was seriously considering chasing nothing more than a name half way across town to prove what exactly? That he could still get one up on Shepard – when the truth was she already had one over on him, and the best he could hope for was to draw level. He should have stayed and talked it out with Shepard. They would have ended up rowing over her mule-headed attitude and that would have been that. Back to normal.

"Ziva?"

"You saw the Director earlier last evening."

He scanned her face, it was enquiring rather than accusing. He didn't know a lot about their history, but they seemed to have become pretty close in his absence. _In his absence._ The thought stung. He had been absent, right after he found the Dear John letter.

Gibbs thought carefully before he answered. Ziva's language skills were improving all the time, but it wasn't clear exactly what she was after. She carried on when he didn't respond.

"You were talking to McGee. He repeated what you said, the Director's last call was from the Frog. So you saw her tonight. Or her cell phone, which is the same thing."

"The same thing?"

"She carries it with her always."

"She's not carrying it with her tonight," Gibbs corrected her gently.

"That makes no sense!" Ziva declared.

Gibbs flipped the emergency stop lever in exasperation.

"Why are you here, Ziva?"

"McGee has something."

"What _kind_ of something?"

"A yacht. With a Frenchman living on it."

"Why didn't you say so?" he snarled, taking his disappointment out on the control panel.

…][…

Gibbs sat behind the wheel of his car in the parking lot of the Navy Yard and put the heels of his hands into his eyes. Sighing, he unsnapped his seat belt and hauled himself out of the car, dragging a fresh container of takeout coffee with him. It wouldn't be the first time he got back behind a desk with zero shut-eye. The team would be in later. At least until then he would have a few hours to himself.

The yacht was a bust. He had sent the rest of his team home in disgust. He had been too late, too slow. Whatever had or hadn't happened there, they were arriving long after the party was over. There were no signs of a struggle, not a thing out of place. To be fair, he had given it no more than a cursory glance once he had realised the Frog was not there. He had other things on his mind, like the whereabouts of the Director and the company she was keeping. That pursuit hadn't gone the way he had planned either.

_"__You've seen this woman tonight." Maybe he should have gone home too, right now he was getting precisely nowhere._

_Gibbs stared hard at the Concierge of the plush little hotel tucked away on the South side, while he held a dog-eared square of paper dating back to a Parisian photo booth. His thumb masked almost half of the shot.__Shepard's arched grin at the camera reminded him exactly where her hand had been at the time, and precisely why his face, trying to process the idea of fooling around in public, was hidden safely under his thumb.__The other photos in the series, long since destroyed involved his bare behind and exactly how deep she sank her nails into his back when he sank into her._

_"__I'm sorry I can't discuss our clientele with you. We would be happy to help if you had a warrant?" _

_"__Would you," Gibbs replied through his teeth. The muscles in his legs tensed as he forced the memories back into their dark place.__ "__All I want to know," he said in his most reasonable voice, "is if she was here."_

_Gibbs watched the man's eyes slide off into a corner. Eventually the smartly uniformed clerk answered, "I'm sorry I can't help you."_

_"__You recognised my name. She tell you to hold me off?"__Gibbs asked amiably.__He tucked his badge back into his jacket pocket.__At least now he knew for certain she was alive.__It didn't explain why she had come here, or with whom._

_The Concierge flattened his lips, but said nothing further _

_"__Was she alone?" Gibbs pressed, his patience running thin.__ "__You can just nod or shake, see, and I won't have this tidy little nook splashed all over ZNN for obstruction."_

_Gibbs received a panicked look and a small nod in reply._

_"__I want a room number and a passkey, or I will bang on every, and I do mean every, damn door."_

_Wherever Shepard was, it wasn't at the discrete hotel. He had gone past the cleaner, just about to start in on the room, at a dead run.__Not that there had been much to see - a couple of damp towels, the cellophane wrapper from a packet of crackers and an empty miniature of bourbon from the minibar could have belonged to anybody._

_He had given the Concierge a dirty look on the way out. It wouldn't have made a difference if the guy had told him she had left, he would still have wanted to see the room.__He had jerked to a halt in the foyer and rounded on the concierge's desk._

_"__How long ago?" he demanded._

_He slapped his hands on the desk when the man stumbled a step backwards at the ferocity of his question. __"__How long!" he barked._

_He had missed her by minutes._

Gibbs strode past security. Just another day in the office he told himself. Except that it wasn't. The yacht was the last lead they had on the Frog, unless McGee missed something first time around and he trusted his team to be better than that. It looked like the end of the line for ever finding out what the connection between Rene Benoit and the Director was. It was clear Kort knew _something_ about it, but he would want something in return and Gibbs was not in a _giving_ kind of mood.

A raid on DiNozzo's cabinet for a fresh shirt and underwear, followed by the dubious luxury of the hazmat showers found him back where he started. Feeling almost human, he installed himself behind his desk, pressing the right buttons to bring the computer to life and pulled a blank report to fill out the details of the fruitless visit to the harbour.

…][…

Two hours later Gibbs leaned back in his chair and arched his back to drive the kinks out of it. Reaching for his coffee, the weight of the container – or rather, the lack of it - twisted his lips. He was all out. The coffee gremlins had struck again, stealing his precious liquid while he was busy. He opened his eyes wide get rid of the paperwork cobwebs and focused on something at a distance to ease the blur in his sight. The wall clock showed 07:15 when he squinted at it, catching sight of the elevator indicator out of the corner of his eye. It was decreasing steadily. Someone had been in on the floor above, the same floor as the Director's office. He swore under his breath. Had Shepard come straight here? He hadn't checked upstairs when he got in, and maybe he should have taken the time to do exactly that.

He hurtled towards the elevator bank, sweeping past his desk fast enough to rustle the papers of the report on his desk. Feverishly he slapped at the call button, but it was too late, the car was already on its way to the floor below. He slammed through the door to the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time and jumping the last few on each turn to race the lift to the ground floor. Security was peacefully quiet, but the main door was just closing on the tail of a long red coat flared either side of a pair of shapely legs. The underside of her stilettos flashed at him, pale against the dark of the tarmac, brazen as a rabbit's tail.

He walked briskly through the foyer and broke into a steady jog as soon as he cleared the door. Her collar had been pulled up around her ears, but there was no mistaking the striking red hair, catching every ray of sun and guiding him in like a beacon. As quiet as he could be, he saw her shoulders square as he drew near. Cool green eyes regarded him carefully when he drew level. He could feel the thrill of the chase brighten his own in return. He chewed at the corner of his own smile. _Gotcha._

"Buy you a cup of coffee, Director?"

…][…

He looked like he hadn't slept, well, that made two of them. Shepherd picked up her pace and faced forwards. As she expected, he fell in easily alongside her.

"For your old partner, or your Boss?" She asked the air ahead of her.

"Depends on the conversation."

"I have a meeting at 07:30, sure it can't wait?"

Out the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head, hearing him chuckle quietly.

"Nope, pretty sure."

They rounded the corner of the block and crossed to the Diner in step.

"We found the boat the Frog was living on," Gibbs drew out slowly, inviting her to comment. She bit her tongue. _Let the games begin._

"Was?"

"Yacht, actually." Gibbs held the door to the Diner open for her and ushered her through. "He wasn't there." The interior was warm, coated with the welcoming bittersweet smell of freshly brewed coffee.

"You came all the way out here, to tell me you missed him." She stated, seating herself gracefully on a stool at the counter.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me, _Director_?" Gibbs leant on the counter. He was as close as decently possible she thought, without actually leaning over her. She never had been fazed by him getting close, she had always taken it as more of a challenge and saw no reason to change now.

She turned on the stool so that her body faced him fully. Her knees, closed primly, were between the two of them, and then she lowered one foot, letting the heel of her shoe slip off. She watched his eyes flicker down and back up, just as quickly. If she looked hard enough she could imagine one side of his lips edging downwards. These were old games, but they still made her heart beat faster.

"I never used to have to say anything," she said innocently. "You were always so good at reading body language.

She waited a moment for what she did and said to sink in and then spun quickly back towards the counter at the waitress approaching.

"Two coffees please. Large. Black."

"To go," Gibbs growled, right by her ear.

Shepherd opened her mouth as if to contradict him, but stopped herself.

"We will find him," Gibbs continued, his lips almost touching the shell of her ear. "And I do _not_ like surprises."

"Or power tools, or computers, or interruptions watching NFL, with the possible exception of food and of course, coffee. Speaking of which.." Shepard smiled at the waitress delivering two takeout containers. "Put them on my tab could you?"

Looking up at Gibbs through her eyelashes she said wryly, "I'll get these, it seems only fair," _since you're not getting what you came for._

He stood back to let her stand, she almost laughed at his puzzled expression when she removed her coat and re-seated herself in the window booth opposite. He stooped over her, placing his coffee on the table beside hers and braced himself, one hand on the back of the seat, the other flat on the table. When she reached for her coffee, he deliberately moved it away.

She widened her eyes at him comically to emphasise the childishness of his action. Whether it was the tiredness or knowing he was on her trail made her feel reckless. She could make him lose that iron control, she knew it. They both knew it. She made sure the memory made it into the way she looked at him.

"I thought you had a meeting," he accused, fidgeting on his feet.

She used a fingertip to lift his sleeve far enough up to expose the dial on his wristwatch. His skin was warm and seductively close. She withdrew her hand, claiming his coffee instead. The urge to touch him made her fingers tap against the container. All she wanted to do right now was trace a tiny circle on the back of his hand with one fingertip and see where they went from there. He always used to be more fun when she got an edge out of him, and right now, he was all edge.

"I have, with Congressman Bob Sommers. He's meeting me here."

"Bob?" Gibbs said, with obvious distaste, even with his lowered tone.

"He's a friend," Shepard rebuked him, knowing there was no point. Gibbs liked politicians only at a distance, and preferably through the sight of a hunting rifle.

"Tight sphincters don't have friends. They have wives, and dirty little secrets."

The bitterness of his reply made her re-evaluate his face. The light of curiosity in his eyes had turned sharp as flint. She had seen him angry before, frustrated, annoyed, but this was different. He wasn't playing, and it was getting personal.

"He's taking me to breakfast, I'll be sure to share your opinion with him," she replied coldly.

"Maybe you can share this with him. I think the Frog had an accident."

"Tragic," she said icily. Her gaze on his never wavered, but she had a sinking feeling that the blood was draining from her face, in spite of her best efforts to remain calm. If there hadn't been a second shooter, she could have been more certain about not leaving a trace. As it was, she didn't have time to check the scene before fleeing it. She only hoped she had done enough.

"Yeah." Gibbs paused. "I think he met you."

The accusation stung. He thought she was bad news. Well maybe she was. It was why she left in the first place wasn't it? She shook her hair back and smiled warmly at the face appearing over Gibbs shoulder.

"Bob, you know Special Agent Gibbs."

"Good to see you again," the politician replied. When Gibbs made no move, he continued. "Care to join us for breakfast?"

She felt rather than saw Gibbs flick his gaze to her face. It felt hot. She left her eyes on the well-dressed Congressman rather than give Gibbs what he wanted. She wasn't going to ask him to go – even silently, he had better manners than this, usually.

"No. I think I've had my fill," Gibbs replied flatly. "Director," he nodded.

She looked at him then, seeing the set in his jaw that said clearly, _this isn't over._ She forced herself to relax back against the bench seat. He look one last look and stalked off.

The Congressman settled himself opposite and shrugged out of his coat.

"Office politics?"

"He's in the middle of a case." She grimaced, feeling like she was apologising for him.

"Anything you can share?"

"I should be asking you that question," she chuckled lightly, turning the tables and dispelling the irritable feeling Gibbs had left behind. There would be more, it was only a question of how much more. And when.


	10. Chapter 10

Bob gave her a peck on the cheek in the parking lot at the Diner.

"See you in two weeks?" He asked, part wistfully she thought. Maybe she imagined it.

"I'll be in London," she said regretfully. She put a little distance between them. "I'll ask Cynthia to call Mya."

He ducked into the back of his sedan, leaving the door open while the window wound down. She closed it gently, resting her fingers on the sill. "I appreciate your time," she said honestly, over the sound of his bodyguard starting the engine.

It was true. In amongst the mild flirting and gentle banter, she wheedled details of policy and budgets, more importantly, how the political landscape lay in terms of who was in bed with whom. Not for the first time, she wondered what he got out of it.

"I never mind spending time with a beautiful woman."

It was too close to the line Gibbs had drawn in the sand. She laughed lightly, pushing off the car. "See you in a few weeks, Bob." The walk back to the Yard never seemed so long.

…][…

There was no proof. Not a body. Not a shred of evidence linking her to the disappearance of the Frog, but he knew. He _knew _it_._

It was the one degree fall in the angle she held her shoulders, the one degree rise in the warmth she used to greet his team on her return from breakfast, fresh from the worm on the Hill. The tilted eyebrow she gave him walking upstairs with that sway in her step that made every man look. The one that said '_I deny everything'._

He watched her grow from a probationary agent to a fully-fledged field agent through bloody minded determination. He had watched her in daylight, in the dark. How she moved around people she liked and stepped around people she didn't, that was, unless she chose to go right through them. Like a current that flows inexorably to the sea and on meeting a cross current, goes under, to surface as a riptide that smashes the unwary on the rocks.

He gave her a few minutes to retreat behind her desk. It was her high ground in their field of friendly fire. A reassertion of the distance between them, like the choker of pearls she wore at her throat he could never have afforded. Then he made a call to the FBI to buy himself a life jacket.

…][…

Dusk crept over the light from the window behind her. She stabbed at the button on the desk lamp and eyed the stack of paperwork to her left. She could take it home she supposed, it wouldn't be the first time. It would give her something to do since despite being bone weary, the possibility of sleep seemed as remote as ever.

The handle on the door to her office snapped down suddenly, followed by the door opening of its own accord. She glared over the top of her glasses at the unexpected intrusion.

"Your driver is here," Gibbs loitered just outside her office door, poking his head through, followed slowly by the rest of him.

"Since when do I have a driver?" She scoffed, watching him saunter into her office.

She had barely seen him all day, not since walking through the staff room on her return from breakfast with Bob. He hadn't looked up, not once until she was on the stairs and then she made a point of telling him she knew he was looking with a jerk of her chin. He had smiled a half smile and ducked his head, ostensibly staring at his computer screen instead of her legs.

Now he had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his long coat, obviously on his way to leaving the building for the night. She sat more upright in her chair checking the clock on the wall opposite. Most sane people would have left their desks an hour ago.

"Since the Director of NCIS got their tyre slashed outside their home. Security said you got a cab to Yard this morning. Car pool said you'd requisitioned a car, but hadn't reported the damage. Why is that exactly?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to guess what he was going with this. As far as she knew, her car was fine, but she wouldn't put it past him to sabotage it, if it meant he got what he wanted, whatever that was. She spun the skeleton of a plan to get the tyre to Abby, to confirm if what he said was true. Games were one thing, but a credible threat was quite another, and she was no fool. Gibbs commanded Abby's loyalty, she hoped she commanded Abby's respect. And that one outweighed the other.

"This is ridiculous, I'm driving," she asserted.

"Nope. You have a driver as of now," Gibbs rebutted, oozing certainty, turning his shoulders on the spot so that his open coat swung out like a superhero's cape. '_Look what I did_,' his face crowed. His lips flattened in on themselves.

"Jethro," she warned, cutting herself off when a new voice entered the fray.

"We take the personal safety of the heads of our government organisations very seriously."

"Fornell?" She accused Gibbs in disgust, as the short, balding FBI agent hove into view. "You're kidding me." She pushed herself out of her chair and stepped around her desk, keeping her eyes on the new entrant. He refused to meet her glare.

"Until we have isolated potential perpetrators, "Fornell tried to interject calmly. "You have a driver. On call. Day or night."

"I'll get my best agents right on it," she snarled coldly.

"I could drive you for tonight," Gibbs shrugged lightly. "You know, let you get used to the idea." She snapped her eyes to him, taking in the tilt in his eyebrows indicating the bastard was thoroughly enjoying himself. Briefly she toyed with the idea of letting him doing it, and shutting the door in his face when they got there. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, silently seething. There really was no stopping him if he wanted in. She was pretty sure he wouldn't be camping out on the front step for long if he had gone to this much trouble. He could have left the damage to the car for her to find in the morning, but he was forcing the matter into today. The errant thought that if might be related to her breakfast companion reared its head.

"This is not happening," she stated, watching Fornell glance rapidly between the pair of them. As much as she enjoyed the idea of Gibb's jealously, she also resented it. They had too much past for him to harbour the expectation he somehow owned her future.

Gibbs tilted his head quizzically, "which part?"

"Why does she call me by my surname and you by your first name?" Fornell asked Gibbs suddenly.

"All of it," Shepard snapped back at Gibbs.

Gibbs glanced at the smaller man, "because you haven't.." Gibbs was abruptly cut off by Shepard's raised and indignant voice.

"Special Agent Gibbs!" She reprimanded.

"Ever been invited to breakfast," Gibbs finished with one eyebrow virtually hooked in his hairline.

"I don't have a death wish," Fornell muttered, reversing the way he had come. To Shepard he said deferentially, "clearly, you're in capable hands. Director."

"I agree," she said with plenty of frost in her voice, "my own."

"Gibbs," Fornell indicated he had said his piece and was leaving with a small nod. The look on his face made Shepard think that some sort of debt had been settled between them. Or a bet.

Gibbs leant against the open door, tongue firmly in cheek. "So. Ready to go?"

"Step into my office," she ground out.

"You want me to close the door?"

"No, I don't care if the entire damn building hears what I have to say," she howled.

Gibbs closed it anyway and rested his shoulders against it. She watched his eyes scan her head to toe, lingering on her shoes.

"You have no boundaries," she accused.

"_I_ have no boundaries?" he repeated incredulously, pushing away from the door and moving to meet her. "This agency depends on you. This job, the job you do in this office! Everything you do affects all of us," he roared. "What you did last night…"

"Going out?" She guessed, wide eyed. He had to have been inside her house last night, after she had left – there was no other explanation. "I didn't know I was supposed to stay in. The way our conversation ended, I didn't think you were coming back for a quickie."

His eyes flashed, daring her to walk close to the self-imposed boundary between them. Gibbs cut off her train of thought.

"How _was_ Kort?"

"He let me finish first, if that's what you mean," she said nastily.

He bared his teeth at her in irritation, one hand balling into a tight fist.

"Does he do it for you?"

"If I was looking for a younger man." She watched his eyes narrow as the comment hit home. Good. He could do with a little competition, imaginary or otherwise to knock that chip off his shoulder. She didn't miss him getting closer, bracing herself for the impact having him nearer would have.

"What did you say, to sell it to him? To let you just walk in and take down the Frog," he said idly. He raised a hand to her face, but she moved back, back to behind her desk. It left him stranded in the role of supplicant, in spite of the fact that she had to look up to him.

She seated herself calmly. "Maybe he took down La Grenouille himself. He has designs on the franchise, it would appeal to his ego." She rested her hands out of sight in her lap, tucking each thumb into the rest of the fist and squeezing.

"You appeal to his ego," Gibbs accused.

"It's something you have in common," she said waspishly. She noted with a tight smile that he didn't bother denying it. She tried to relax her shoulders, watching while he took his time taking in her body language.

"He could have done that at any time. Why now?"

"You heard him, La Grenouille wanted out."

"And you wanted, what?"

"A little fresh air."

"Like this morning? With Bob?"

She paused. It seemed petty to ask him if he had a problem with it, when he so clearly did.

"I make deals, Jethro. Not enemies."

"So, Dear John was part of a deal."

Shepard tried to hide her surprise. Of all the subjects they had covered since her return, this was the first mention of it. "That wasn't a deal, it was a rule. One of yours actually," she replied stiffly. Turning her back on the forlorn white envelope on the bedside table had its own personal halo of pain in her memory. Gibbs spread his hands wide on the edge of the blotter and leant over.

"You're going to have to explain that one to me." His tone was as quiet as it was deadly.

"Eleven," she said evenly. "And you can drop the dumb Marine act." She tried hard not to get drawn into the ice in his blue gaze.

"When the job is done? All of it, was a job?"

"I walked away, because you wouldn't."

Gibbs shook his head slowly. "You walked away because of the Frog. He give you these?" Gibbs hooked a finger into the choker, his touch cool against the pulse in her throat.

"My Mother," she croaked. "They were my Mother's."

"You don't ever talk about her, but she's the reason you knew Paris so well."

"And your Mother?"

Gibbs pulled away abruptly. "Speak the language like a native. Parisian French isn't like any other dialect."

"Who made you such an expert?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You did." His head tipped to one side, "I'll make you a deal."

"And that is?"

"I drive you home tonight."

"And then?"

She watched a bleak smile get snuffed before it reached his eyes.

"And then we'll see."

Her eyes roved his face. It could just be a ride. A car was close quarters, but not exactly face to face. Maybe he thought he could get her to open up. If there was anything behind a steel door with no key, it was the circumstances of her Mother and Rene Benoit.

"I'm not ready to leave yet."

Gibbs took his time shrugging off his coat.

"What do you think you're doing?" Seeing him move towards the couch nestled in an alcove of her office wasn't what she expected.

"Waiting," he replied drily, drawing a newspaper from one inside pocket and his spectacles from another. He threw the coat in a heap ahead of him and settled himself, shaking the paper out in front of him. At least here, she could keep a wary eye on him, but then so could he, on her.

"Don't make so much noise," she groused, snatching up a pen and retreating into her work. The pearls chafed coolly against her skin as she slid her glasses into place.

She plucked a document from the pile on her left and tried to concentrate. Silence stretched between them. She was well aware how quiet Gibbs could be if he wanted to. It didn't feel like she had won. It didn't feel like he had won either, yet. She bent her head to read the precis about a lead on drugs trafficking being run out of a naval base and lost herself in her work. One hour turned into two. Two to three. The pile on her left morphed into a pile on her right.

"Hungry?" Gibbs soft growl cut across her attention.

"Yeah," she sighed, looking over, to find him coat on and standing in front of her desk. He narrowed his eyes and she held his gaze, irritated at the way her body warmed under his scrutiny. She knew he was really saying, '_ready to go?'_

She let her face say, _'not with you.'_

"I'll get something," he offered.

Shepard stared at him suspiciously, watching him closely as he leant in and braced himself against her desk, forcing her to look up to him. She followed his eyes down to her cleavage and back up again, followed too, the way his tongue flicked out to wet the corner of his mouth.

"Steak." He stated.

"Pepper sauce," she confirmed, pulling her spectacles from her nose.

"You're staying here," he said firmly. She cocked her head and didn't say a word, watching his eyes taking on a pinched look.

"I'll wait," she confirmed, '_for you to leave,' _tonguing the inside of her lip and trying to suppress her stomach growling at the thought of food. She'd make a move in spite of her hunger, just to see if she still could. Or to see if he could catch her at it. In the moment, she wasn't sure which one she would prefer.

He scratched at the underside of his chin with the backs of his pointer and middle fingers. "I'll be fifteen minutes."

"Um hmm," she murmured, already thinking about getting to the garage level and adopting the nearest vehicle. She could almost feel Gibbs' stare rake her face for integrity. She did her level best to make sure that he found some. She wasn't sure if she had been successful or not when he spun on his heel and left without a word.

Shepard watched the seconds tick by on the clock on the wall. She gave it three minutes without moving. Five, by the time she had her jacket on and reaching for her purse, having shoved folders into a briefcase and adjusted the shoulder strap. It would take him at least ten minutes to get there and back, assuming where he was going. He wouldn't expect her to be at her desk after fifteen minutes if he hadn't returned by then.

She slunk out of her office, making for the elevator bank. She changed her mind, heading for the stairs instead. Anyone could track the floor numbers on a moving elevator, and whilst she was probably not the last person in the building, it was possible she was the last person on this floor given the lateness of the hour. She compromised, taking the stairs to the next level and calling the elevator from there.

When the car arrived, she checked the opening doors with trepidation. The car was empty. Sighing with relief and quelling a rising feeling of euphoria, she stepped inside, jabbing at the button for garage level. Obediently, the car picked up speed immediately and almost as quickly, began to slow. Someone else had called the elevator. A few floors below. She moved to the back of the car, letting her breath out in a huff and folding her arms protectively across her body. The elevator doors opened. Gibbs stepped in without a word. He eyed her from under his brows and made a point of checking his watch for the time.

Seven minutes, she estimated. "Well?" she opened, tired of waiting for him to say something.

"You know what this is?" he asked, reaching for the emergency stop almost as soon as the doors had closed. The elevator car jerked to a halt and the lights dimmed. He turned to face her. "This is my office."

"You don't have an office," she mocked.

"And you don't have an exit strategy," he murmured gently, closing the gap between them.

"I'm taking a pool car," she stated mutinously, flicking her eyes between his eyes and his mouth.

"We're all out. The van too." He stopped in front of her, took her briefcase strap off her shoulder and guided it to the floor.

"You were going for something to eat," she reminded him, feeling somehow more exposed with the less she had to carry.

"I still am," he said with a slight lift to one side of his lips, dropping his head closer to hers. "Noemi left a note on your fridge. Steak's at home."

…][…

"So all this, is what?"

He had to admire her cool. He didn't bother calling her on trying to side step him, he expected nothing less. That he had thwarted her made him wonder why he was still in pursuit at all.

"Not part of the job."

He stared into her half closed eyes, wondering what it was about her that was the same, but different, to just a handful of years ago. She was harder, colder. More distant somehow. Did leaving him do this to her? It was supposed to be what she wanted. He reached up to cup her cheek, brushing her face with the side of his thumb when she made no move to pull away.

"Where's the body Jen?"

"It's a little late to be playing guessing games isn't. I thought you didn't like them anyway."

Her eyes were darker and never left his.

"You weren't there. Gun wasn't either."

"You don't trust me."

"On this? No."

He lowered his face closer to her, but still holding himself apart. He had done it in Marseilles too. She started it. Started everything. Finished it too.

_"__Aw shit." Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose hard and threw his napkin on the table. He recognised enough French to spot steak on the menu and right now, he really wanted to get his teeth into something. He downed his wine and what was left of hers, shoved his chair away from the table and stormed after her._

_"__Shepard? Shepard!" He slammed open the door to the restroom, half expecting to find an open window and an empty room. _

_She glanced at him, away from her reflection in the mirror. "What's the matter? Forgotten how to order steak au poivre?"_

_"__No." He eyed her warily. She had let her hair down. He hadn't realised how long it was. "Are you coming back to the table?"_

_"__You don't need me to order your dinner," she said with a disgusted sigh._

_He stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him and moved closer, trying to read her face. She looked more weary than angry. _

_"__Au poivre. I thought that was pear." _

_She turned back to the mirror, staring at herself and ignoring him. _

_"__Come back to the table. Eat something, you need to sleep," he pressed._

_"__Do you have any idea. What it's like. Working with you?" She drawled. "You're like a machine. A smart, driven, hard, bastard of a machine."_

_He didn't feel much like a machine, far from it. This felt like one of those defining moments in a marriage where he knew he had put a step wrong and was unable to escape the landmine underneath. He was trying not to think about her stumbling into him at the bottom of the ladder. Neither of them had moved for what felt like an age, despite the fact that his hands must have been biting into her waist. He could feel the shallowness of her breathing, unable to tear himself away from the blatant hunger that seared away the tiredness in her eyes. He had told her to watch herself and then it started. She railed at him._

_Her fury amused and irritated him in equal measure. Shannon, when she went off on one, he'd let run for a bit, come on over and kiss her senseless. He could have kissed Shepard at the bottom of the ladder and got it out of the way. What she was going through could just be curiosity. He frowned, angry at himself trying to project what was going through his mind into hers. His heart squeezed tight. He didn't remember feeling this way when he met Shannon. She never challenged him, not like this. Shepard, now, that's all she ever seemed to do._

_He came to stand behind her, leaning forward against the sink unit and staring into the glass like she was._

_"__The job is done, rule eleven," he told her reflection, watching her turn her face towards his profile. She tucked her hair over one shoulder, like she was getting ready for something. "Walk away," came out low and harsh, he could feel his pulse starting to race. He stood up suddenly and made for the door._

_"__What are you afraid of?" she called after him._

_He spun on his heel, stalking back to where she leant her hip so casually on the sink unit. He pushed his face close to hers, eyes tight at getting called on his actions. "What did you say?"_

_Her eyes lit. "What is it you're afraid of, that I won't be able to stop? Or you won't?"_

_"__Stop what?"_

_"__This."_

_He felt her lips brush his. He seized the tops of her arms, keeping her at arm's length._

_"__You don't know what you're doing," he reasoned. His lips buzzed from her contact._

_"__Don't be so naïve." He stared down at her tilting her face towards him. "You're hurting me," she whispered softly. He could feel the muscles in her upper arms changing shape, but was still taken by surprise when she cupped his face in her hands, pulling him closer._

_He resisted for a scant second, enough to see the emotions play over her face. Disappointment. Determination. It might be easier for this to run its course. It was only going to be a kiss. He was stronger than she was. He could stop any time he liked. He let her tug once and moved to plant his lips over hers._

_She tasted like the wine she had left on the table. His French was rudimentary at best, with the emphasis on rude, but he knew how to order a drink. He plucked at her lower lip and she opened against him, leaning into his body. He was aware of his fingers loosening, sliding off her arms and fumbling for a hold at her waist that pulled her closer, allowing him to angle himself over her so she had to lean back against the sink, off balance and dependent on him for stability. The low hum of approval coming from her body was driving his blood distinctly South._

_His tongue teased her, drawing away when she chased after it. Her right hand crept up, behind his head to weave a fistful of his hair, thick near the crown. Her left scratched down against his chest, lifting and settling over the ridges hidden under his clothing. The rasp of their breathing was interrupted by his low hiss when she pushed her hand into his front pocket and grazed him. He grabbed at her wrist._

_"__I'm not doing this in a public restroom," he growled into her mouth, hugging her body close so the hollow at her hip could feel what she did to him._

_He felt her pull herself away, keenly feeling the lack of friction and the void of her warmth. A short rummage in her purse and she was calmly reapplying lip gloss of some other such gloop to her mouth. She stared back at him implacably. "What kind of a girl do you think I am?"_

_"__We have to be in Paris soon," he muttered, trying to read her face. It was flushed, but she kept her eyes away from his. There was no other sign they had been all over each other only moments ago. He felt like he had whiplash. There would be a hotel with adjoining rooms in the city, he had already had the local office make the bookings. He was already second guessing the arrangement._

_"__Tomorrow, if I drive through the night. You can sleep in the car," he said gruffly. "I have to eat. He turned his back to her and the mirror, touching his lips for evidence of her. There was nothing other than heightened sensitivity. He moved towards the door._

_"__Poire," she called after him._

_He looked back at her reflection._

_"__Pear is poire," she said, rolling the 'r' throatily. "They poach them in wine here. They're better cold."_

_He squared his shoulders and dragged the door open, trying to ignore his body's response to her voice. Dinner was going to be hell._

A/N Writing time has been severely compromised. If I did it again, I'd probably put all of the italics in a different story.


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